


Love Amongst the Dragons

by somethingpants



Series: Dragons (Collective) [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Minor Character Death, Original Character Death(s), tw: disease, unbetaed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24430006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingpants/pseuds/somethingpants
Summary: Zuko's childhood is marked by one traumatic experience after another. There are few bright spots, but they make all the difference.
Relationships: Zuko (Avatar)/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Dragons (Collective) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776619
Comments: 53
Kudos: 148





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely self-fulfilling fluff that I wrote for myself and decided to post. There's several other chapters already written that just need to be edited to be posted. Timeline will be from Zuko's childhood through the canon timeline and into adulthood. Rating may change. Thank you for reading!

Zuko’s favorite place to visit in the palace is the kitchens. It’s one of the few places he can go that Azula isn’t likely to follow- she doesn’t like speaking to the staff- and where he knows all the adults there will be delighted by his presence.

He’s seven years old when he sees another child in the kitchens for the first time. Zuko is waiting ever so patiently for one of the dumplings currently steaming on the counter and he catches sight of a small body standing next to one of the younger ladies, Hanabi, in the kitchen.

Most of the women who work in the kitchens are old enough to be grandmothers- Zuko knows because they’re always telling him that his manners are much better than their grandchildren’s- so it’s very odd to see someone his age there. The boy is smaller than him, darker, with black hair and black eyes. He’s watching his mother’s hands carefully as she rolls out the dough for more dumplings, his chubby fingers tangled in his simple, red robe. 

Zuko has already forgotten about his promised snack, instead making a beeline for the little boy. Dark eyes shift from his mother’s hands to Zuko, widening before dropping to the floor. He loses some color, moving behind his mother’s skirts to hide. 

Hanabi looks down at Zuko, smiles sweetly, “Oh, hello Prince Zuko. Did you want a dumpling?”

Zuko looks up at her and straightens his shoulders, puts on his best imitation of his father when he says, “I want to speak to your son.” 

“Sang,” She says softly, looking down at the boy behind her and carding a hand through his hair gently. “Come say hello to the prince, don’t be rude.”

The boy, Sang, hesitantly comes out from behind his mother. He’s still not making eye contact, has probably already been told that one should never address or look at a member of the royal family without first being acknowledged. “H-Hello,” He murmurs, fingers nervously clenching at his robes again. “Prince Zuko.”

Zuko smiles brightly at him, looks up at Hanabi, “Can we share a snack by the pond? We won’t get in trouble, promise.”

She chuckles at him, wipes her hands on a rag and moves over to the steam basket. She fetches several dumplings for them, wraps them in a piece of cloth and ties it in a neat bow. She carefully hands it off to Zuko, “See that you behave. You can go play for a while, Sang, be good.”

Sang looks startled, eyes wide enough that Zuko can see little flecks of light brown in the dark black. He seems like he wants to ask something, looking at his mother expectantly, but instead just nods and goes to stand near Zuko, leaving a few steps of space between them. 

Zuko grabs his hand and leads him out. The boy stumbles behind him, legs considerably shorter and less agile than the prince’s, but he manages not to fall. Zuko takes them out into the gardens, breathes in deep and smiles at the scent of fresh air and his mother’s flowers. When he turns to look at Sang, the other boy is staring around in wonder.

“My mother plants all the flowers personally,” Zuko brags, sitting next to the pond and looking up at Sang until he does the same. “She talks to them every day.”

“Princess Ursa does?” Sang asks. His voice is soft and light, so quiet that Zuko can barely hear him while they’re sitting right next to each other. He’s probably the same age as Azula, and Zuko can hear her from across the palace.

“She loves the gardens! She feeds the turtle-ducks with me, she likes to sit under the trees and read.” Zuko smiles at Sang, holds out a dumpling for him to take. 

Sang does, turns it over and over in his hands, frowning softly. 

“Is something wrong?” Zuko asks, biting into his own dumpling. “They’re just pork and cabbage.”

“It’s too pretty,” Sang whisper-speaks, looking at the prince nervously out of the corner of his eye. “These are the ones that go to the top table.”

“They’re just dumplings. What’s so pretty about them?” Zuko takes out another whole one and examines it. It’s smooth, with little ruffles on top where it was sealed before it went in the steamer. It looks like every other dumpling he’s ever eaten.

“It doesn’t have any holes,” Sang explains, leaning in to show him. “And it has sixteen pleats in it. They get counted before they leave the kitchens. The bad ones get pulled off and we eat them in the kitchen for supper.”

Zuko blinks, looks more closely at the dumpling. He can’t even count the number of creases in the dough, has never even heard of such a thing. He remembers Uncle Iroh talking about how hard it is to master dumpling-making, but he never knew what exactly separated a good one from a perfect one. “What happens if you send one with seventeen pleats?” He asks, mostly joking.

Sang shrugs, delicately places the dumpling back into the cloth, like he can’t bring himself to bite into it. “I don’t know. I know when the apples are bruised the girl who picks them gets reprimanded. Probably the same thing.”

“Have you ever been...reprimanded?” Zuko hasn’t ever used that word himself, has only heard it, but he can’t seem like he doesn’t know it to a boy younger than him.

Sang looks at him funny, “I’m six. I don’t do anything.”

“You were helping your mother.”

“I watch her so I can learn. The head cook said I was old enough to be in the kitchens if I promised not to bother them while they work. It’s less boring than waiting in the staff rooms with the  _ babies _ .”

Zuko has never been to the staff chambers, the one place in the palace besides the war rooms where he’s been explicitly told not to go. He knows vaguely where it is, two floors below the main level of the palace, probably a hallway like the royal chambers. Maybe smaller. “You used to stay there all the time?”

Sang nods, “All the younger children do until they’re old enough to help. There’s not very many, though. Most of the girls who get pregnant end up moving to their husband’s family house.”

“You don’t live at your father’s family house,” Zuko points out, shoving the rest of the dumpling into his mouth. He pokes a hole in one with his thumb, hands it to Sang who takes it without looking at him.

“...No,” Sang says softly, taking a delicate bite. Zuko waits for more, stares at him, but Sang just watches the water vacantly and takes small nibbles off the dumpling. 

“Did he die?”

“I don’t know. My mother never told me.”

Zuko frowns, “Weren’t they married?” He didn’t know very much about marriage and babies, but he knew that one led to the other: you got married, you had a baby. He’d heard rumors of people doing things backwards, but you still had to do  _ both _ .

Sang shakes his head, face going ruddy and his eyes shining. “I don’t think so. She tells people she’s never been married. The other ladies in the kitchen don’t like it.” He sniffs, takes a bigger bite to fill his mouth and stop talking.

“That’s okay!” Zuko says hurriedly, suddenly terrified that Sang will cry. “Don’t be upset, please.”

Sang looks at him sorrowfully, cheeks puffed out with food and eyes watery. He bites down, swallows carefully, “What do you do when you’re not in the kitchens?” He asks, fiddling with the hem of his robes. 

“I have lessons all day,” Zuko groans, happy for the change in topic. “All my tutors are very boring. I have to learn how to speak properly, and write, and I have to learn so much  _ history _ . My favorite lessons are when Uncle Iroh comes home and teaches me about strategy and poetry. And my bending lessons, even if it’s just practicing the movements right now.”

“What sorts of things do you write?” Sang asks. Zuko frowns, was hoping that he might ask about the  _ interesting _ lessons, but maybe Sang doesn’t like strategy as much as Zuko does. 

“I have to learn all the characters and how to write them perfectly. Sometimes the tutors have me write letters to Uncle Iroh on the front, for practice, or to my mother. I’m going to have to write a whole essay soon.”

“What’s an essay?”

“A long paper I have to write about poetry. It won’t be too bad, I like reading poetry.” Zuko eyes the last dumpling, still hungry but not wanting to be rude. Sang picks it up and puts it in the prince’s hands. “What do you like to read?”

Sang blinks at him, “I don’t know how to read. Or write. I don’t think my mother does either. She knows how to read some of the recipe cards, but they just have things written on them like ‘milk’ or ‘rice’. I know those words. I couldn’t write them, but I can read the signs at the market when my mother brings me.”

Zuko shoves the dumpling into his mouth and picks up a stick, making careful lines in the soft soil below them. He writes out a few characters carefully, swallowing heavily before he speaks, “This one is ‘rice’,” He points out, handing the stick to Sang. “You try to write it like that.”

“I wasn’t watching,” Sang replies, frowning at the stick. “You went too fast.”

“Here,” He does it again with his finger, the character fatter but still readable. He goes slowly, shows the other boy how to draw each line until Sang has a wobbly ‘rice’ written in front of him. “See! Now you can write ‘rice’.”

“What does this one say?” Sang asks, smiling a little. Zuko scratches at his own chest, his chest feeling fuzzy. 

“That says ‘dumpling’, it’s a little more complicated,” He replies. “Do you know how to spell your name?”

Sang shakes his head, “My mother doesn’t write down names. I don’t know if she picked out a spelling or not.”

“We can make one, ‘Sang’ should be easy. Just like the tree, I think,” Zuko bites his lip, carefully making the strokes for the name of the tree. Nature names were popular, and the tree was very pretty in the spring when all the berries came in. It wasn’t a bad thing to be named after. “There. Just ten lines. You’re so lucky, my name has almost twenty.”

“This is already so hard to write!” Sang sighs, exasperated. “Who has time to write a name with  _ twenty lines _ ?”

“Princes, mostly,” Zuko replies. “It’s all I do all day. Write words with too many lines.”

“That sounds terrible,” Sang replies, folding up the cloth from the kitchens. “I don’t think I want to learn to write after all.”

Zuko shrugs, wipes his hand over the lines in the dirt, “Maybe another time.”


	2. Your Mother's Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things change after Ursa is gone.

After Azulon’s funeral, Zuko refuses to be separated from the gardens. He spends most of his days there if he’s allowed, sitting amongst the flowers and reading his mother’s favorite books. He talks to her plants, tries his best to tend to them like she would have with the gardener’s patient help. He wears all black and sits underneath her tree, feels the bark against his back and tries to imagine she’s still there, sitting next to him, reading from a book of poetry or a play he might get to see with her.

It’s several days before Sang is allowed to visit the prince in the gardens. He’s also dressed in darker colors, a black robe with a red sash around his waist, and he stands in stark contrast to the bright greens of the plants around him while he waits for Zuko to acknowledge him.

Zuko’s been crying, he knows his eyes are watery and red, that his voice will waver and crack if he speaks. He nods at Sang, doesn’t look directly at him, and the other boy walks forward slowly and kneels at his side, hands folded delicately in his own lap. 

Sang takes after his mother, has her eyes and face and hair. Zuko sometimes wonders who his friend’s father is, if anything he sees on Sang belongs to the man they’ve never met. Hanabi is kind and funny and honest, the only difference Zuko can see between her and her son being that Sang is much less candid, more easily cowed or frightened. He wonders if Hanabi was the same in her youth, or if that is something Sang inherited from his absent sire. 

“I’m sorry about your grandfather,” Sang whispers to him, looking into his face. His eyes, Hanabi’s eyes, are large and full of concern. “And...and your cousin.”

_And your mother_.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Zuko sniffs, staring at the pond with his jaw tense. The turtle-ducks are still there, still swimming around in ignorance that their mistress is no longer there to gently feed them. To keep the princess from tormenting them. To tend to their eggs in the spring.

Sang lets out a breath, tucks himself into Zuko’s side gently. He threads one of his arms into the crook of Zuko’s elbow, like he expects to be led around like the prince’s esteemed, affectionate guest. It’s a common gesture when they’re alone, never something done in front of anyone who might inform his father. Sang’s head comes to rest on Zuko’s shoulder, his hair heavy as it sits on the prince’s back, already grown past Sang’s shoulders.

“A student was in class and asked, ‘teacher, why do the birds not hit the stars when they fly in the sky?’” Sang tells him, lacing their fingers together and squeezing his hand. “Do you know why, Zuko?”

Sang doesn’t often omit his title, it’s private much like their familiar touching and hand-holding, but it helps him to forget for a moment how much things have gone wrong in the palace. Zuko is not a prince right now, in the gardens, sitting with a cook’s son. He is a boy with his friend.

Zuko looks up at the sky, sees the vague shapes of hawks, “Why don’t birds hit the stars when they fly in the sky?” 

Sang hums, smiles into his shoulder, “The stars can dodge.”

“That’s not even a very good joke,” Zuko chides him, voice rough. “Why did you even come here?”

“That joke is good enough for the kitchen staff. You’re too good for kitchen jokes, now?” Sang squeezes his arm, “I tried to catch the fog yesterday morning.”

Zuko lets out a long-suffering sigh, leans into Sang and rests his cheek on the other boy’s head, “Did you?”

“Mm,” He hums, “ _Mist_.”

The prince snorts, “Did you get these from my uncle? They’re terrible.”

“No, my mother just has an awful sense of humor.”

“It runs in the family.”

*-*-*

Azula gets worse after their mother is gone. Zuko’s tutor tells him that it’s probably grief, she’s upset about Princess Ursa and acting out. It’s normal for young children to rebel if they lose a parent.

Zuko knows better. He knows that she’s happier than she’s ever been, if that’s a feeling his sister even knows. She uses it as an opportunity to be even more callous than she had been before, knowing that Ursa is no longer there to scold her and Ozai will only reward her cruelty.

Azula, before Ursa’s disappearance, was careful not to target Sang. She knew Zuko was defensive of him, would be angry at her for calling him a peasant or insisting that her brother didn’t truly have friends because commoners didn’t count, would tell their mother if she so much as looked at Sang for too long. Azula was mean but not stupid, it hadn’t been worth the effort or risk at the time.

Now, however, she takes every opportunity.

Zuko is making his way to the kitchens after his lessons, spurred on by the promise of ash banana bread and a quiet afternoon spent with jokes and subtle attempts to teach Sang new words to write. He rounds the corner of the hallway, sees Sang standing by himself some distance away, and almost calls out to him.

Then he sees Azula and her friends.

Mai and Ty Lee have never been as mean as Azula. They mostly stand around while she bullies whoever she likes, looking vaguely uncomfortable or just in another direction all together. They don’t participate, not unless forced, and Zuko feels sorry for them sometimes. Knows the terror his sister can inspire when she wants to- and she always wanted to.

Sang is standing in the regular posture of a palace servant: hands folded, eyes on the floor, shoulders slumped. Carefully put together to seem smaller than he is, if possible. Azula is already taller than him despite being a year younger.

“Peasant,” Azula smiles at him, standing far too close for Zuko’s comfort, her shadow falling heavy over Sang, almost making him disappear into the wall. 

“Princess Azula,” Sang replies, voice quiet and respectful, his tone perfectly neutral and calm, like a good servant. Zuko can see his fear, can see the slight tremble in his hands and the way he squeezes his eyes shut. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“My guests and I would like some bread. The nicest loaf in the kitchen,” She leans close, their noses almost touching. Sang’s eyes are still closed. “Now.”

Sang nods, the tension in his shoulders falling minutely as he makes to turn away and escape into the kitchens. Azula catches his sleeve, pulls hard until Sang is forced to one knee on the ground. She holds him there by his neck, her nails making cruel little crescents into his skin.

“I want you to walk there in your knees,” She tells him in a low tone. Mai and Ty Lee are looking everywhere but the servant boy, everywhere but their “friend”. 

Zuko is breathing smoke. He didn’t realize he could do that. His chest feels hot, like it’s filling with fire, he feels the heat spread over his tongue.

Before any of them can move, before Zuko can do something he regrets or Azula can continue her tormenting, Hanabi appears from the kitchen doors. She smiles kindly at the princess, hands folded in her lap but eyes meeting Azula’s instead of the floor. She makes no mention of their positions, her son on his knees and the princess holding him by the neck like a dog. 

“Ah, Princess Azula,” She greets softly, voice gentle and kind. Her eyes are dark, shiny little crescent moons, lined on the sides from smiling. Hanabi was always smiling. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Azula purses her lips, clearly at an impasse. She’s mean, but not stupid. She’s still a child, and Hanabi was a kitchen staff in good standing. Azula removes her hand, rights her shoulders, “Bread.”

Hanabi smiles at her graciously, glides over to gently pull Sang to his feet and brush off his robes. She strokes his hair back carefully, tucks it behind his ear, “Why don’t you go fetch a few loaves for me? Keep one for the prince, I’m sure he’s hungry.” Her eyes rise to Zuko, who feels something cool deep in his chest. He no longer feels flame on his tongue. 

Sang nods, still pale in the face and watery in the eyes. He’s quick to disappear into the kitchens, leaving Hanabi and the girls standing together in the hall. Hanabi turns to the princess, lips still upturned, and tilts her head. Her eyebrows come together and up, a picture of concern.

“You know, Princess Azula,” She says, quietly, like a secret. “I think you have your mother’s eyes.”

Azula looks affronted, Zuko can see her jaw tense from down the corridor. Her fists clench, nails digging into her palms. She does it when she’s upset, he’s often seen her squeeze until blood comes to the surface. “I have my father’s eyes, he says so.”

“Perhaps the color,” Hanabi concedes, “But you have the same kindness in them that your mother had. They’re very beautiful. You should be proud to be her daughter.”

Zuko has never seen Azula look uncomfortable before. She was an expert in inspiring that in others, in throwing them off and tearing them open. He’s never seen her so exposed.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” Azula states, voice cold. She walks down the hall without another word, Ty Lee and Mai left behind in stunned silence. 

Hanabi rights her posture, hands folded in front of her apron. She smiles down at the two girls remaining, corrects the pin in Mai’s hair before it can fall, “Would you both care for some bread? You can take one to the princess for later, I’m sure she’ll regret missing the ash banana. It won’t be here forever, you know.”

Sang returns looking a little less afflicted, holding three loaves of bread in his apron. He gives two of them to Mai, eyes on the floor and hands never quite touching the girl’s. Hanabi sees them off down the corridor toward Azula’s chambers, smiling and waving as they depart. She gently brushes her hand through Sang’s hair, retying his top knot which had become disheveled.

“You go play with the prince now, darling,” She says softly, kissing his forehead. “I think he’s been waiting for you.”

Sang turns, meets Zuko’s eyes, and he almost expects to see anger, knowing Zuko had stood there and watched his sister do what she did. Knowing he’d done nothing but seethe quietly until an adult intervened.

Sang’s eyes were still watery at the edges, filled with shame and sorrow. He averts his gaze, looking at the floor and walking up to Zuko, blinking rapidly with a wobbly bottom lip.

Zuko has him in a tight embrace before he can think better of it, pulling the smaller boy to his chest and clutching him tightly. Sang gasps softly at the contact and Zuko digs his fingers into the thick fabric of his robe, closing his eyes and trying to take calming breaths. His ribs were hot, reignited by his friend’s humiliation. He’s slow to release him, arms loosening until he’s simply holding Sang’s arms in a loose grip, letting out a heavy, smoky breath.

When he looks up, Hanabi has gone back into the kitchens.

“Are you okay?” Zuko asks, letting his hands drop. “I...I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Sang murmurs, rubbing at one of his eyes with his sleeve. “I’m...just embarrassed. I should be able to take care of myself.”

Zuko threads their fingers together, tugs on his hand gently until Sang follows him. He heads to the gardens, “Azula shouldn’t treat people like that. She wouldn’t even think about it if-” _if our mother didn’t leave._

“It’s okay,” Sang insists, moving his arm to cling to Zuko’s bicep. He opens the door to the garden, lets Sang through first on reflex. 

They walk together to his mother’s tree, sitting down in the long, soft grass. Sang removes the loaf of bread from his apron, rips it in half and hands the bigger part to Zuko. He chews on his lip, looking at the pastry and turning it over and over while the prince eats.

“The ladies in the kitchen told me Azula was right to... to punish me,” He whispers, sniffing. “Because we shouldn’t be friends. They said my mother was just making my life harder, letting us play together. Like...like we’re the same.”

“They’re wrong,” Zuko says firmly, frowning deeply. “Azula shouldn’t talk like that to anyone. You’re the only other boy my age in the whole palace, who do they expect me to be friends with?”

“Nobles. Like...like Azula’s friends. Or your cousin.”

“He was sixteen! I can’t be friends with someone who’s practically an adult already. You’re my friend,” Zuko grabs Sang’s hand tightly, lips pursed. “And I like you being my friend.”

Sang exhales, squeezes gently and leans into the prince’s side. “I like being your friend, too.”

“Eat your bread,” Zuko says, nudging him. “It’s good. Your mother makes the best ash banana bread.”

Sang smiles, looks up at him for a moment with something shiny and bright in his eyes. Zuko likes that look much better, more than what was there before. He thinks for a moment about kissing him the way Hanabi had, pressing his mouth to Sang’s forehead. Or like he’s seen married couples kiss. 

“I’ll learn the recipe,” He says, lowering his eyes and taking a nibble from the firm outside. Zuko lets out a breath, buries his nose in the crown of Sang’s head. “I’ll make it whenever you want, when we’re older.”

Zuko can’t wait to be older.


	3. Near The Water (or Anywhere)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prince Zuko is twelve when violet fever rips through the main island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a content warning that there's a fictional disease mentioned in this chapter, and some quarantine measures are briefly put in place. These chapters were all conceived several months to years ago and aren't based on the current climate. This is also the least edited chapter but I liked it too much to change anything.

Prince Zuko is twelve when violet fever rips through the main island. The last time he sees Sang before it happens, they have a relaxing day in the gardens enjoying a snack and talking about Zuko’s lessons. He’s just gotten into the interesting bits of fire bending, his uncle teaching him some breathing exercises in private while his tutor teaches proper form and flame management. Sang was hanging onto every word, interested despite his insistence that he had no need for Zuko’s sort of bending, content to just make small flames in an oven like his mother.

It had been a nice afternoon, Zuko wishes he hadn’t retired early that night, knowing now that he wouldn’t see his friend for more than a month after that.

The fever hits hard. Zuko and Azula are spared thanks to being shut away in the royal chambers wing of the palace, only allowed to move between the various bed chambers and bathing rooms contained therein. Azula visits him sometimes, mostly to ask him sarcastic questions about his tutoring, knowing she’s several steps ahead of him. 

Their tutors come, stand outside their doors and teach them with coverings over their mouths. Zuko’s writing instructor makes vocal notes about how lacking he seems as the weeks go on, writing listless letters to his father and uncle and sister. Not his best work, the tutor clucks.

He writes other letters, once his teachers are gone for the day. Zuko takes up his brush and ink and creates long, poetic missives until his hand cramps. He even makes some attempts with his left hand, not wanting to stop, but the characters become clumsy and unintelligible. When he’s finished for the night, he dries them with smoky breath and hides them within his pillow case, hears the gentle crinkle of the pages as he falls asleep each night.

_ I miss seeing you near the water, I miss seeing you anywhere. _

_ My tutor says my writing has gotten ‘lackluster’. I save all the best lines for you. _

_ I have breakfast each morning and the only comfort is that you had a hand in making it, so maybe we’re still connected that way. _

Zuko is told by a maid the morning of the forty-third day that he may leave to the rest of the palace. Everyone who was ill has recovered or passed, there is no more violet fever on the main island. 

He very nearly rips all his letters in his haste to retrieve them, rolling each one carefully like a scroll and slipping them into a small satchel to carry. He dresses quickly, probably looks as if he slept in the robes and didn’t bother to straighten them, and barely keeps himself from running the entire way to the kitchens. The door is propped open, letting out the delicious scent of cooking breads and spices.

The cooks are all dressed in black robes, moving solemnly around the counters and hearths. No one speaks jubilantly, no one chats or jokes or even looks at each other besides the small acknowledgement when handing off a breakable dish. Hanabi is not there, and neither is Sang.

One of the older cooks spots him standing in the doorway, looks stricken for just a moment before she makes her way to him, lips pursed tightly. Her eyes are dark and wet.

“Yes, Prince Zuko?” She asks, as if perhaps hoping he’s there for anything else. 

“I...I wanted to see Sang,” Zuko replies, voice dry and nervous. The cook fidgets for a moment, wiping her hands and looking away from him. “Where is he?”

“I...Imagine still sleeping,” She tells him, eyes on the floor. “He’s had a hard few days. He’ll be in the men’s rooms.”

Zuko didn’t ever go to the servants’ chambers, was generally not allowed, but he knew where Sang slept. He’d been told before that Sang slept in a bedroll next to his mother, with the women and other young children. He wasn’t quite old enough to sleep on his own with the male servants.

“Thank you,” Zuko says, turning away and stalking off. He has to wander around the halls for a little while to find the correct set of stairs leading down, earning many odd looks from guards or maids who aren’t used to seeing the royal children on this floor. He has to ask one for directions, a young maid only a few years older than him who isn’t likely to know he isn’t allowed there, and finds the men’s chambers.

It’s a plain door, wood and looking badly in need of replacement. He knocks gently, it falls open.

Sang is sat on one bedroll among many, a bag near his side full of familiar robes and sashes- all the clothing his friend owns. His hair is in disarray, tangled and falling in an odd way around his shoulders, bearing no top-knot or ribbon. His face is ruddy, eyes and cheeks swollen, fingers tangled in the loose fabric of his sleep robe, picking at a bug-eaten hole on the hem. 

He looks up when Zuko enters, sniffs softly but doesn’t speak. Just blinks hard and looks at the single mirror in the room, a cracked pane of glass leaning against the opposite wall.

“Sang?” Zuko calls softly, padding forward carefully and kneeling next to his bedroll. He lets his bag fall, forgotten, and grasps his friend’s hand. “Are you ok?”

Sang gasps a shuddering breath, wipes at his eyes with his sleeve. The fingers in Zuko’s hands are cold. “M...Mother passed. Yesterday morning,” He barely manages, voice small and broken. A fresh stream of tears falls down his cheeks, burning new paths. “She was the last one.”

Zuko doesn’t know what to say, and he can’t bring himself to speak. He squeezes Sang’s hand, brings it to his mouth and breathes warmth onto his icy skin, presses the knuckles to his lips. Sang is unmoved, stares at his own reflection in silence for a long time.

His hands are warmer when he does speak, under Zuko’s careful ministrations of warm air and gentle friction between his own palms. “I keep seeing her in the mirror,” He whispers softly, wobbling. “But it’s just me. I see her hair, or her cheek, and...and it’s not her. And I just-” He chokes, covers his mouth and squeezes his eyes shut. Takes a deep breath. “It...it won’t be her, ever again. She won’t...she won’t wake me in the morning, or brush my hair, or help me dress. She won’t show me how to make the dumplings properly, or how to cook the bread just right. She won’t sing to me at night.”

Zuko wraps his arms around his friend’s shoulders, brings him in close and rests his chin on Sang’s head. “She’s...she’s here, a little,” He murmurs into Sang’s hair, “You’re her son. I see her, too, all the time. When I see you. It’s the same hair. Same cheek.”

Sang shakes his head, shoulders shaking with quiet sobs.

“And she taught you how to make the best bread, and the best dumplings,” Zuko continues, rubbing gentle circles in his back. “And you sound just like her when you sing.”

“I  _ don’t _ .”

“You do,” Zuko insists, “You’re terrible at it.”

Sang lets out a startling noise that Zuko mistakes for a greater sob. His shoulders shake terribly and it takes almost a full minute for the prince to realize it’s choked, stuffy laughter. Sang wipes his face, sniffs, sighs, “She wasn’t very good, either.”

“You might be worse,” Zuko offers, rubbing at one of Sang’s cheeks with his sleeve until the dried tear tracks disappear. “At least she never tortured  _ me _ with it.”

“No,” Sang takes a deep breath, leans into his side for a moment. “No, just me.”

Zuko sits with him, arm resting on Sang’s shoulders while the other boy catches his breath. 

“I’ll brush your hair,” The prince offers after some quiet minutes have passed. “I don’t know if I can do the top-knot the way you like, it’ll probably just look like mine.”

Sang strokes his fingers through a section of his own hair, staring at the mirror again and frowning minutely, “I just...can’t believe I got to eleven and never did it myself. I should’ve learned.”

“If it helps, I’ve never cooked anything,” Zuko replies, situating himself behind Sang and beginning to card his fingers carefully through the tangles in his hair. “Not a single roll or noodle.”

Sang giggles, straightens his back to make Zuko’s task easier, “You’re a prince. Your job is to...I don’t know, write things prettily and learn about war.”

“Oh,” He leans over, grabs his bag and deposits it in Sang’s lap. “Speaking of writing.”

Sang opens the satchel, brings out a roll and unfurls it carefully, lays it out in his lap. Zuko can see his jaw working, lips moving along with the words as he reads. It’s a habit the prince used to carry, as a smaller child, but was quickly broken of when his tutor said it made him seem ‘simple’. On Sang, it has only ever looked focused, absorbed into the writing. Zuko has always liked it on him.

“Oh, Zuko,” Sang sighs, “That’s very nice of you, to write a letter to me.”

A cough, ducking to the side to find a hair ribbon among Sang’s clothes. “They’re...all to you.”

“...Zuko, there has to be a few...dozen scrolls in here,” He replies, frowning and digging further into the satchel.

“One every night,” He admits, rubbing his own cheek and situating Sang again so he doesn’t make eye contact. Sang stares at him in the reflection of the mirror as he works, tries to mimic his own routine but on another head. 

Sang drops his eyes, reads another letter to himself while Zuko gently manipulates his hair into a neat top-knot. He lets the scroll roll itself back up again, just says, “I...miss the water, too. I miss the garden. It’s been off limits to everyone but the gardener.”

“We can go there this afternoon, after breakfast,” Zuko says, still running his fingers through the loose hair falling down Sang’s back. It almost reaches his waist.

“I’ll need to get dressed first.”

Zuko stands, he and Sang moving around each other as they prepare to leave. Sang packs away the scrolls back into the satchel while Zuko removes the single, black robe from his friend’s bag. When Zuko helps Sang into it, the fabric settles heavily over his shoulders, slumping them with some invisible force while he adjusts the sash in the mirror. 

Sang is still the vision of his mother, from his eyes to the curve of his cheek to his hands. He stares sadly into the mirror, fingers nervously threading themselves through a lock of hair falling over his shoulder, twisting and pulling the strands. 

Zuko offers his hand, waits patiently until Sang finally takes it, threads their fingers together.

“Let’s go eat.”


	4. Reading (An Interlude)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short interlude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A purposefully short chapter today! The next two or so are pre-written but about to undergo some heavy editing. The rating and warnings will change with the next post due to canon-typical violence. It only goes downhill from here, kids!

There’s a small, makeshift office in the back of the palace kitchens. It’s just a small table situated between shelves of preserves and old crates, a finely-tipped brush and stained ink well ever-present next to a fluctuating stack of papers. It appears begrudgingly after the kitchen learns of Sang’s writing “talent”, handing off the job of correspondence to the one among the cooks that could write and was not already too old to hold the brush properly. The chair is creaky, with one leg shorter than the rest and at just a height that he must hunch over to write. The room is stuffy, gets far too humid during the heat of midday and refuses to allow the ink on his letters to dry. None of the farmers he must write to can spell correctly, or use grammar he understands.

Zuko knows all these things because it’s all Sang will talk about.

“It takes all day,” Sang gripes, still idly rubbing his palm with the thumb of his opposite hand, leaning back against the tree in the garden. “I have no time for tea, basically all I do is write letters, make lunch, write letters, make dinner. I can’t even help with breakfast because some things must be sent with the first courier. I don’t know  _ why _ -”

“You complain a lot,” Zuko observes, skipping stones across the pond. The turtle-ducks are chasing them lazily, mostly swimming in circles wherever the rocks sink. “Did you always complain this much? Why do I even bring you out here?”

“It’s your fault,” He snarks back. “You just  _ had _ to teach me to read. Can’t have illiterate friends, oh no, not Prince Zuko.”

“If it were up to me, you wouldn’t even be able to talk.”

“At least I complain about reasonable things, not about how my private fire-bending tutor isn’t teaching me fast enough.”

“He isn’t private. He teaches Azula, too.”

Sang laughs at him, tosses a rock that hits Zuko in the thigh. “You’re so spoiled. Why did I even come out here?”

“To complain at me,” He settles down next to Sang, their legs touching. “Like every day.”

“Oh, just most days,” Sang sighs, lets his head fall to the prince’s shoulder. “Hm, well, if you’re tired of hearing me complain you should try to gripe about something. Preferably more interesting than bending lessons.”

Zuko looks up at the clouds, fights back a smile for the sake of their joke, “I have to get up an hour earlier now, just to fit in sword lessons  _ and _ poetry.”

“I still get up two hours before you, try again.”

“Well, after all my lessons, I have to come listen to  _ you _ . How’s that?”

Sang snorts, pokes him in the ribs, frowns when the touch makes a crinkling noise on impact, “Are you stuffing your robes with straw, what’s going on there?”

“That was for later,” Zuko sighs, reaching into his robes and pulling out a scroll, wrapped in a fine, red ribbon and sealed with wax. Uncle Iroh had gifted him a set of nicer letter-writing materials, for when he actually sends them.

He’s yet to give one to an actual courier.

“Oh, yes, please. More reading,” Sang says drily, taking the letter despite his attitude. He unravels it and starts to read, lips moving with the letters and a furrow appearing between his brows.

“You know, most people would be honored to get a letter from their prince,” Zuko reminds him, smiling as Sang reads.

“Well, most people haven’t had to read your handwriting. Did you mean ‘afternoon’ here? That’s not how you make that character.”

“Would you shut up and read? It probably takes so long because you’re thinking of stupid things to say back to me.”

Sang makes a face and some annoying, high-pitched noises like he’s imitating Zuko’s voice, but he does quickly settle back into reading. It takes a while for him to reach the last few sentences, enough time that Zuko almost begins to doze off until Sang gasps and grabs at his arm. 

“You get to sit in on a meeting?” He asks, letter already forgotten on his lap, his full attention on Zuko. “General Iroh finally said yes?”

He can’t help the grin taking over his face, nodding, “The next one is in three days.”

“I can’t believe you actually get to sit with the war council! You- well, you can’t tell me  _ everything _ , but I want to hear about as much as I can when it’s over.”

“Don’t worry,” Zuko hums, wrapping an arm around Sang’s shoulders. “I’m sure you’ll hear all about it.”


	5. Tradition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sang witnesses the true heart of the Fire Nation: its traditions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a different POV! The next chapter was originally part of this one, but it ran too long for my tastes so it will probably be up after some light editing!

Lee Fang woke Sang up every morning with a gentle push to his shoulder. The room is still dark, the sun not due to rise for another hour or so, and everyone still asleep in it is rousing slowly. Sang sits up, rolls his neck, and quietly thanks Lee Fang as he does each day, the old man smiling at him, nearly toothless, before going to lie down now that his own overnight shift of scrubbing floors is over. 

Sang rises to the symphony of the other male servants groaning and complaining, various joints popping and the thudding of feet landing on the floor. He strips out of his sleeping clothes, the year or so spent there burning away any shame he might have had, and pulls on a plain red robe. His hair has to be managed carefully, combed through gently with his fingers before using a brush, the tedious sectioning of hair and tying the ribbon tightly so the top knot won’t slip. He gathers the loose, remaining locks and binds them at the base to keep them from flying around while he works. When he tosses his hair over his shoulder, he feels the knot at the end bump his lower back. 

He’s the first into the hall, walking briskly up the stairs and through the long, ornate corridors of the main palace, floors still shiny and wet in some places from being cleaned all night. The guards and maids he passes are all various levels of exhausted, still not entirely awake or having been so for far too long. 

The kitchen is empty when Sang arrives, so he takes it upon himself to light all the fires. The flames come easily, despite his progress in learning how to summon and manage them slowing significantly after his mother’s passing, but he likes to think he’s achieved some growth on his own. 

As tempting as the various flours and herbs are, he resists the urge to begin baking the bread for breakfast. Sang disappears into the makeshift office, letting out a burdened breath before he sits on the unsteady chair and begins to sort through the letters that the courier had dropped off, likely in the middle of the night. 

His morning is long and tiresome, blinking back tears when his eyes become so dry they burn. Every letter is a monotonous list of complaints or general information, dry and boring and always the same as the letters from the day before.  _ We have cabbage. We have fish. We have grain. _

Sang has a headache.

The sounds of the kitchen have been a pleasant backdrop to his routine, chattering and clanking and scent and heat pressing around him, reminding Sang that the world wasn’t confined to his miserable little room where the ink won’t dry. His hand is sore from writing, equally monotonous and dry requests for crops or meats or whatever he can look around and clearly see they need. 

He’s rubbing his palm when he notices that the sounds of the kitchen have stopped, silence echoing from the kitchen, not even the clinking of dishes or the sizzle of oils on a pan. 

The door to the office rattles open, the guard behind it entirely unbothered that it wasn’t actually meant to open the entire way, sending several boxes and ceramic jars to the floor.

“Excuse me!” Sang stands, the chair skittering back. He moves to clean up the mess, but his wrist is grasped before he can make a full step. The guard is strong, uses more force than necessary, and tugs at him until he stumbles forward and into the kitchen. “What are you doing?!”

Sang is dragged behind the guard as he marches resolutely out of the kitchens. They pass by the other cooks, all of them pale and looking to the floor, wincing with every protest Sang makes. Not one will look at him, respond to his pleas, and he’s lost the will to struggle by the time they reach the corridor.

He walks, subdued, behind the guard. Sang is not well-versed in the layout of the palace despite having lived there his entire life, most of his exploration only taking him to the servants’ wing, the gardens, or the kitchens. He’s seen the doors to the throne room exactly once, when he helped the other cooks carry out his mother and the other woman, Ezuna, after the violet fever had taken them. The halls they walk down are unfamiliar and only grow more so as they continue, the guard walking at a quick pace as Sang struggled to keep up, the hold on his arm unrelenting and hardening each time he falls behind. 

The doors they come to are ornate, tall, similar to the ones leading to the throne room but clearly older and less often replaced. The guard pushes through them, brings Sang into a room with stone floors and a small gathering of officials. 

Sang sees General Iroh among them, meets his sad gaze from across the floor and watches him react, sees the general grow that much more sorrowful. Sang is already shaking, dread filling him from his feet, making them heavier with each step, and burning up to his throat, bile building. 

He stands between two guards, no longer held by the wrist but by their mere presence on either side of him. Sang is staring at the floor, terror preventing him from asking more questions that might tell him why he was there.

He chances a glance up, catches sight of Zuko in a far corner, shoulders covered in fine cloth and facing away from the crowd. He almost moves, wanting to be nearer, ask what’s going on, but his feet are melded with the floor, incapable of movement. 

It hits him all at once. The ceremony, the grim expressions, the  _ crowd _ . He’s never seen an Agni Kai in person, has only heard of them as he’s heard of most other ornate, complex rites mostly reserved for the upper classes, the ones with real honor to lose. They happen, and often, but not to anyone he knows.

It was never meant to happen to someone he  _ knows _ .

Sang jerks forward without thinking, a hand clasping around the back of his neck and keeping him in place. He knows, deep down, that this isn’t a surprise to Zuko- the prince is probably well aware of what’s happening- but he still has to fight the urge to warn him, to call out and stop this.

When Ozai emerges from the other side of the room, eyes dark and foreboding, Sang can no longer contain himself.

“No,” He whispers, struggling weakly against the grasp. He looks at the guards, feels tears well in his eyes, wills either of them to  _ look _ at him. “No, you can’t...he’s a child, please!”

Sang sees the moment that Zuko spots his father, surprise clear on his face. The hand on his neck tightens, stings with the force needed to keep the boy from interfering. 

Zuko falls to his knees, Sang doesn’t know he’s yelling until a gloved hand clasps over his mouth, silencing him. The crowd of officials look uncomfortable, General Iroh’s eyes closed tightly and mouth pressed into a firm line. 

If he could, Sang would scream at them. Beg them to help. Spit at them for just standing there. His teeth meet hard leather, dig in hard despite knowing that the guard likely can’t even feel it, but he must do something.

Sang cannot hear Ozai speak over the sound of his own heart and the stuttering of his breath, face wet with tears and vision cloudy. He sees Zuko look up, pleading with his father.

He sees fire. He sees Zuko fall.

It’s over as quickly as it began, and Sang is hauled out of the room just as mercilessly as he was dragged into it. He struggles the entire time, desperate to break free and make sure Zuko is still alive, still whole and unbroken. The guards, both now, hold each of his arms and essentially drag him back to the servants’ wing, struggling with the stairs and Sang’s efforts to make all three of them fall.

He’s thrown unceremoniously into the mens’ chambers, hitting the stone floor with an audible thump and quiet groan. He hears the door slam behind him, pushes himself up and slams into it with his entire body, screaming at the guards on the other side. It doesn’t budge, must have been blocked from the other side because the servants’ doors do not have locks. 

Sang sinks to the ground, exhaustion taking hold of him suddenly and making his eyelids heavy. He blinks hard, rubs his eyes on his sleeves and sniffs hard, crawls across the stone to his bed roll and curls up on top of it. 

He cannot imagine sleeping, but he does wake some hours later. The sun is low in the sky, the room still empty despite the hour growing ever later. He wonders where the other servants are, if they’re being kept out on his account or if something else altogether is going on. The world feels blurry as he struggles with latent exhaustion after a nap and he briefly considers that everything was a terrible dream, that he’s been hit with some fever that gave him such potent nightmares.

The door swings open, revealing the guards on the other side. Sang’s arms still ache from where he’d been dragged and held, a sharp pain in the back of his neck probably surrounding bruises, if he could see it for himself. 

Sang stands without having to be ordered, walking solemnly into the corridor and proceeding between the guards, their hands hovering at his elbows in case he made attempts to flee again. He doesn’t, and it feels like a betrayal of his own body.

They wind down more vaguely unfamiliar halls, the floors and walls blending together as Sang continues to stumble along, still barely conscious and seeing everything through a haze. The guards have to grab him to keep him from walking directly into the doors.

The doors to the throne room.

Sang lets out a breath, closes his eyes briefly. “Do I have to?”

The silence and a large hand coming to open the door are his only answers. He walks forward falteringly, steps heavy and slow. They parade him to the center of the room, several yards from the raised dias on which sat the throne and, sat there, the Fire Lord.

Sang looks at the floor, folds his hands, allows his shoulders to fall. Makes himself small, humble, unassuming.

“Sang, is it?” Fire Lord Ozai asks, voice booming and echoing off the high ceilings. It makes Sang wince, nod. “Do you know why you were brought here?”

The air catches in his throat, he looks up briefly, meets fiery, golden eyes. He drops his gaze. 

“I asked you a question,” Ozai continues, tone growing irate and steely. “You  _ will _ answer.”

“No- no, my Lord. I...I don’t know,” Sang manages, eyes stinging. He’s never spoken directly to the Fire Lord, has only seen him from afar or heard his words second-hand. 

“Your display at the Agni Kai was...disrespectful, to say the least,” He responds, eyes narrowed and focused. They burn holes into the top of Sang’s head, make his heart stutter painfully in his chest. “Do you know how I respond to disrespect in my palace, Sang?”

Sang almost shakes his head, hands shaking and stomach tight. He feels as if he might be sick. “N...No. My Lord.”

“The prince was also disrespectful. He shamed me by speaking out of turn, and shamed himself by refusing to fight. Our culture is our life, our traditions are what bind us as a nation. If the crowned prince cannot conduct himself in an honorable manner, how can we ever progress?” Ozai rises from the throne, walks down the dias with slow, deliberate steps. “And it seems I have found the source of his insolence.”

“I never meant-”

“I didn’t ask you to speak,” The Fire Lord spits, face filled with contempt. Like he despises even wasting words on a commoner. “My son has been justly punished for his misstep. And you have cost him greatly.” He draws closer, now only a few feet of space between them. “Your corruption has cost the prince his title and his honor.”

Sang’s tears fall, hit the ground. Ozai looks disgusted, his nose wrinkling at the display. 

“The Agni Kai was his chance to show that he could uphold the Fire Nation, and he failed. He behaved as a coward-”

“He’s a child,” Sang sobs, “He’s your son.”

“Excuse me?”

“ _ HE’S YOUR SON! _ ” Flame spits from Sang’s mouth, rolling off his tongue and brushing the very edges of the Fire Lord’s face. 

Ozai looks startled, thrown off for only a moment before it hardens into something more than anger. Sang covers his own mouth, begins to beg, “I’m so sorry, my Lord-”

“I think we are well past that,” He says coldly. “Hold him.”

The same gloved hands return, one at his throat and the other at his forehead. The hold is tight, keeps Sang from even turning his head away, the only thing he wants to do.

“It is clear where your alliance falls, and it is not with the Fire Lord,” Ozai tells him, taking a few steps back and contemplating the boy before him. “Or with the Fire Nation. Treason cannot be tolerated. You are hereby banished from the Fire Nation until such a time that the crowned prince regains his honor. Shave his head and load him onto the ship with the others.”

“No!” Sang sobs, struggle renewed. Ozai had begun to turn away but looks back at him again, lips pursed in annoyance. “Please, no, anything else!” Sang had no use for honor, having been born a bastard and a servant, he had very little to lose.

He had thought so, anyway.

“Anything?” Sang’s heart sinks as he takes in the fascinated look in Ozai’s eyes, the contemplation in them. “Hm. I suppose you do have rather lovely hair, for a commoner. It would be a shame.”

The Fire Lord presses upon him again, hands coming up to stroke through Sang’s hair, locks heavy between his fingers. He instructs the guard to hold it up, away from his face and neck, a ponytail in the leather’s tight grip.

Ozai retakes his former position, a scant two or fewer feet between Sang and the Fire Lord. His eyes are wide, watering, feet unable to move despite the terror welling up in his heart.

“You’ll be marked as the traitor you are. You should have no delusions otherwise,” He says, breathing in deep. “A matching mark, I think, to the prince you despoiled.”

Sang sees the fist rise, feels the heat of it before he registers what’s happening. He knows he must scream, can feel the sound tearing out of his throat and into the air, but his entire being is absorbed in agony. His eyes burn, one side of his face tight and searing. 

It overwhelms him. He cannot fight the encroaching darkness. 

He sleeps.


	6. Into The Abyss (Headfirst)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They adjust to life aboard the ship.

Sang wakes to the ground lurching around him, the room dark and hazy. Half of his face is hot and painful, bandages wrapped tightly over his right eye. For a moment, he forgets what’s happened, wonders dazedly where he is, why the room tips and tosses around, if the rocking motion is real or if it’s just in his head.

His stomach twists, urging him out of the bed roll and to a nearby bucket, emptying what little was in his belly. He groans, curling over the wooden rim and willing the tumbling of his surroundings to cease. 

A door opens, the sound it makes heavy and metallic, and hands come to grab at his arms and try to force him back. Sang doesn’t realize how loud he’s screaming until his back hits the bed, General Iroh’s face filling his vision, full of concern and gently attempting to soothe him.

“Peace, Sang,” He whispers, nodding encouragingly as the boy quiets. “Peace. You are safe. You are on a ship.”

“Shi- ship-  _ oh _ ,” Sang groans, clutching at his stomach. The general lifts the bucket again and it’s much worse this time, his stomach too empty and only bringing up acid. He falls back onto the pillow, feels the cloth over his eye grow heavy and wet. He reaches to touch it, but the general grabs his wrist before he can.

“Don’t touch,” He chides softly, gently placing Sang’s hand at his side. “Your wound is infected, you are very ill. You must rest.”

“I-Infect- infected?” Sang is freezing, his entire body shaking. His face burns, he can feel something thick and hot running out from under the bandages. When it falls to the white, unfamiliar garment he’s wearing, it stains red. 

General Iroh sighs, turns away and breathes life into the hearth. “Stay under the blankets until your fever breaks, Sang. You must get some rest. You will feel better after you sleep.”

Sang wants to protest, say that he’s clearly been sleeping for a while and only feels worse. He couldn’t possibly rest, freezing to death and burning from the inside out all at the same time. Despite this, he felt too weak to remain conscious, the darkness already encroaching at the edges of his vision. 

He sees the general looking at him, humming a song and smoothing his hair back from the bandages and his sweat-slicked forehead. He closes his eyes.

* * *

When Sang awakens again, his mind is much clearer. His face no longer feels as if it’s burning, his right eye still sore and covered but no longer damp with blood. He sits up carefully, holds his stomach reassuringly just in case, and takes a deep breath.

It’s only a few minutes after he manages to sit himself up against the wall that the door opens again, General Iroh smiling kindly at him and bearing a tea pot. It’s daylight now, making the room much clearer: the small bed roll that Sang is resting on, a trunk at his feet, and the hearth at his side. It’s tiny, the walls made of iron and unembellished, clearly not belonging to a very large or extravagant ship. 

“How are you feeling?” The general asks, setting down the little pot and fishing two small cups from his robes. He pours each of them a generous serving, hands one carefully to Sang with a grin. “Ginseng. For energy and healing.”

Sang takes it, cautious of the shaking of his hands and the natural movement of the boat beneath them. He takes a sip, letting out a soft breath and relaxing minutely. “Thank you, General Iroh. I’m feeling much better.”

“Just Iroh. We will be on this ship together for a very long time, we should be familiar.”

Sang smiles, nods a bit, takes another drink. The tea is hot, soothing to his rough throat and gently filling his still-roiling stomach. “Thank you...Iroh,” He sets the cup in his lap, holding it carefully, “How long have I been sleeping?”

“A little more than a week, on and off,” Iroh tells him, “I do not know how much you will remember, but you woke up several times before your fever broke.”

“I remember a little. My eye was infected?” Sang reaches to touch the bandages, but Iroh grasps his hand again, lips pursed.

“Yes. You must understand, Sang, that most people injured like you were, on a ship of all places...they do not recover. You are very lucky.”

Iroh’s tone is heavier, leaving Sang feeling unsettled and anxious. He blinks hard, feels his eyelids shift under the bandages, but it’s not right somehow. Something is wrong. “What happened?”

The older man looks pained, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. 

A commotion outside the room startles them both, the sound of flames and metal hitting the walls. Sang brings his knees up to his chest, knocks the tea cup to the ground. Instead of the guards, or some other horror, Zuko appears in the open doorway.

He’s disheveled, clothes loose and askew, clearly still in whatever he’d been put in during his recovery. The left side of his face in wrapped in bandages, his uncovered eye wild and bright. His head is shaved, leaving only the portion on top where his top knot would be, a ponytail in its place.

His features do not soften when he sees Sang, there’s no relief or kindness. Sang hugs his knees tighter, even more afraid.

“I was to be told as soon as he woke up,” Zuko growls, glaring at his uncle. Iroh is impassive, though disappointed. He does not seem surprised, like how Sang feels. 

“It has only been a few minutes, Prince Zuko,” Iroh responds, carefully picking up the shattered remains of Sang’s teacup. “I was going to let him rest.”

“I’m fine,” Sang murmurs softly, hoping it might calm the prince.

“ _ Fine _ ,” Zuko spits, jaw tensing. He’s clenching and relaxing his fists, agitated and on edge. It’s unfamiliar on him, makes Sang’s heart quicken uneasily. “You’re not fine. That  _ butcher _ let your wound get infected-”

“Prince Zuko,” Iroh sounds tired, is motioning with his hands for Zuko to calm. It doesn’t seem to be helping. “The healer did all he could.”

“ _ He lost an eye! _ ” Zuko shouts, smoke pouring from his mouth. Iroh goes quiet, hands falling to his own lap.

“What?” Sang is patting earnestly at the bandages, trying to disprove him. He feels the shift of his eyelids, but the sensation is  _ wrong _ , they go back too far, it makes him jerk his hand away in disgust. His breath is quick and shuddery, on the verge of panic, “What happened to my eye?”

Zuko goes still, face paling. He looks at Iroh, “You didn’t tell him.”

“He’s just woken up,” His uncle responds, quiet. “I wanted to let him rest before upsetting him further.”

Sang wants to tear the bandages off, stare into a mirror until he can see both eyes and reassure himself they’re there. He must be acting on the urge because Iroh’s hands are on his wrists again, voice trying to calm him as he hyperventilates. Sang has never been so absorbed by fear, by panic. His mind is screaming that what’s going on right now is impossible, that he must wake up soon from this terrible nightmare.

He hears the door slam, the loud banging of metal-on-metal bringing him brief respite from his frenzy. Iroh is staring forlornly at him, Zuko is gone.

“It will be all right, Sang,” Iroh tries, loosening his grip and gently stroking hair back from Sang’s forehead. “There are glass eyes, your scarring will not be so severe. You will be just as handsome as ever, I promise.”

Sang hiccups, exhausted and terrified. He lies there quietly, Iroh quietly reassuring him as the ship beneath them rocks along the waves. The older man’s words wash over him, ringing hollow in comparison to the chaos taking over Sang’s mind. 

There is no garden to visit. No soft conversations to be had, or turtle-ducks to feed. He is on the ocean, moving further and further from his home with each moment, no return in sight. There is no sweet, childish prince to speak to, replaced with a jaded stranger. 

He feels a tear trail down from his left eye. 

* * *

Sang’s recovery is long and tedious. It takes him more than a week to regain enough strength to stand for more than just a few minutes at a time, often leaning heavily on walls and railing while Iroh or another man on the ship hovers around him nervously, waiting for him to fall. Lieutenant Jee is perhaps the worst about this, silently and stoically holding out his arm and refusing to budge out from in front of Sang until he takes it and allows the Lieutenant to walk with him. Sang knows he is kind, if not a bit stern, but it still bothers him that he needs the help.

It isn’t helped by the endless recitation of news aboard the ship. Sang doesn’t see Zuko for almost a full fortnight after his fever breaks, but he hears all about his behavior. The Lieutenant is obviously bothered by it but isn’t one for gossip, especially not with a child, but the handful of masked guards onboard are much less rigid than the ones in the palace. 

He hears of frequent arguments, physical outbursts, threats. Sang doesn’t remember this side of Zuko, wonders if perhaps Azula snuck aboard somehow in his guise, but he can recall how the prince acted when Sang first woke up: crazed, angry, thoughtless. Bordering on cruel.

Sang wonders if the Fire Lord intended this, or if he never gave thought to the idea of how it might change his son. 

He doesn’t pay much attention to it, doesn’t respond to the guards gossiping or Iroh’s own reports- more concerned, afraid for his nephew than anything. He focuses on his own recovery, on the promise of a glass prosthetic to match his other eye, on regaining his strength and returning to his duties.

It’s hard to do with Zuko still in the back of his mind, an ever-present specter of worry and latent affection. Even with how insufferable the prince had become, Sang had no one else like he’d once had Zuko. And if anything could justify a boy going from the kindness of their childhood to his present form, it was the Agni Kai.

It’s drizzling when he finally seeks out the prince on the bow of the ship. Zuko has the railing in a white-knuckled grip, seething at the ocean and seemingly pressing his weight against the iron, daring it to give out and send him headfirst into the abyss. His bandages are clean, freshly changed, and now only present to keep anything from touching the tender, healing skin around his eye. 

Sang is in a similar state, although he’s also leaning heavily against a walking stick the other cook leant him, the  _ click click click _ portending his arrival.

“The rain won’t be good for your bandages, Prince Zuko,” Sang tells him, squinting at the sky. The water feels lovely, in all honesty, and he relishes the sensation of cool water on his cheeks and forehead. 

“Or yours, go inside,” Zuko is short-tempered now, almost impossible to speak to without garnering some amount of aggravation. The guards love to chatter about how irate the Lieutenant becomes after having any conversation with his prince. Sang would love to be able to defend him.

“What, am I going to lose the eye  _ again _ ?” Sang asks drily, quirking an eyebrow at Zuko. He winces, the muscle in his jaw working. 

“Don’t joke about that.”

“It’s my eye,” A pause. “Was.”

Zuko exhales hard, eyes squeezed shut, “ _ Stop _ -”

“A one-eyed man walks into a bar.”

“This isn’t funny. Nothing about this is funny.”

“You should ask what he says.”

“Stop. That is an  _ order _ .”

Sang leans close to the prince, smiling, “He says ‘ouch’. Because he walked into a bar.”

Zuko stares at him, good eye narrowed in irritation.

He’s not done yet, though.

“What do you call a one-eyed cook?” 

“ _ Sang! _ ”

“Exactly,” He smiles sweetly. “See? You can play along.”

The prince sighs, twists his hands on the railing, “You need to take this more seriously.”

“Oh,” Sang waves him off, slipping one of his arms around Zuko’s bicep, “I think you’re taking this seriously enough for everyone onboard.”

They stand together there for a few minutes of silence, watching the rain fall into the ocean, seeing the strips of uninhabited land in the distance. They won’t stop at any of them, too small and wild to be worth the time, but he knows that Zuko itches to inspect every inch. He feels it in the tensing of the prince’s arm, sees it in the bulge of his jaw. 

“The general told me about your...mission,” Sang broaches carefully, petting a hand over Zuko’s sleeve soothingly. It doesn’t seem to help.

“To find the Avatar.” Zuko’s voice is flat, matter-of-fact, determined. It makes Sang’s heart ache.

“Well,” He sighs, leans his head on the prince’s shoulder. “At least we’ll see some sights.”

“We’re not  _ sight-seeing, _ we’re  _ hunting _ .”

Sang didn’t want to say what he knew the entire ship was thinking: this isn’t a mission, it’s a mobile exile; an excuse to get as many troublesome people out of the palace as possible without having to take any sort of responsibility for them.

“Oh, are you going to shut your eyes to every festival?” He asks, squeezing Zuko’s arm. “Every lovely tropical island? Every colorful market?”

“No, obviously.”

“Then you’ll see some sights,” Sang replies, cheerful as he can manage. “Whether you like it or not.”

Zuko doesn’t respond, lets them lapse once again into quiet companionship. Sang can feel him relax, hands still gripping the rails but no longer in danger of splitting a knuckle or melting the iron. He waits patiently until Zuko leans into him as well, lays his head on top of Sang’s hair like he used to, when they were still children.

“What do you call a blind cat deer?” 

“I need you to stop.”

“‘No eye deer’- it has no eyes!”

“I’m going to  _ drown you _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay safe and have a nice weekend!


	7. (Wishing for) Sanctuary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avatar is spotted. Zuko suffers another defeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gave me a lot of issues over the last couple weeks! It was my last pre-written chapter and I had to redo it several times before I got something I liked. I hope you enjoy!

“Am I to assume we won’t be stopping to fish?” 

Sang has been learning Pai Sho and various other tile-based games from General Iroh for the better part of their two-year voyage. He’s discovered, to his own chagrin and he’s sure the mild disappointment of the older man, that he doesn’t quite have an inclination for it. The games are fun and effective at passing the time but, just like the characters he writes in letters, the symbols on the tiles often float and morph themselves. It’s only gotten more severe with the loss of one eye, more difficult to perceive depth and fine details. He often confuses them and even after long months of learning, he must still look up and clarify every other move with Iroh before he sets his tiles down.

Iroh is nothing but patient, smiling gently at him each time. Sang admires his fortitude. 

They are all gathered on the foredeck, Sang and Iroh huddled around the tile board while Zuko paces back and forth, surprisingly not burning a trail behind him. He’s been especially on edge for the last few days, staring out into the ocean as they drift further and further south, glaring down icebergs and the thick, lazy tiger seals that nap on the odd rock or thin stretch of land. Sang could almost swear that Zuko feels something, is waiting for something to happen, but he’s not sure either of them knows _what_.

“We’re not stopping,” Zuko responds, exhaling smoke and stomping past the board again. Each pass makes the tiles shiver, almost like they too are afraid of the prince’s wrath. “This isn’t a social visit.”

“The meat rations are running low,” Sang hums, squinting at a tile. The lines on it swim faintly, phasing between the Air Nomad symbol and that of the Water tribe. Iroh clears his throat delicately, taps with the end of his own tile on the board, showing him the proper placement. Sang sets it down, lets out a breath. “And everything this far south is going to be the fattest meat we can get.”

“What a good meal they would make!” Iroh groans, placing a hand on his belly. “We have had nothing but lean venison since the last port. I do miss the richness of a nice stew.”

“You’ve both gotten skinny,” Sang continues, turning his head so both his eyes, real and glass, might focus on the prince and, more specifically, the leanness of Zuko’s waist. “You could do with some seal-”

“We are _not stopping_.” 

Sang sighs, turns his attention back to the game in front of him, knowing that speaking to the prince when he was already agitated only ever resulted in char marks on the deck. He’s quietly grateful that the Fire Navy does not invest in wooden boats.

He thinks, at first, that the subtle vibrations going through the board are his imagination until they begin to rattle in earnest. Sang gasps and does his best to keep them from scattering onto the ground, looking up at Zuko to ask what’s happening.

Zuko’s eyes are on the horizon, a stream of light extending from a distant point up into the sky. It’s miles away but clearly more powerful than anything else Sang has ever seen, the deck still shuddering with the aftereffects, the droning sound of tiger seals crying out in unison surrounding the ship. 

“Finally,” Zuko mutters to himself, his face hardening in renewed determination.

Sang’s heart falls. 

  
  


* * *

Zuko doesn’t seek Sang out again until nightfall, after all the guards are returned to their posts and the general atmosphere of the ship has calmed. He’s trying to meditate, legs folded on his bed mat and hands clasped as he focuses his thoughts and energy on the small flame in his hearth, breathing slowly and deeply with as clear a mind as he’s ever been able to achieve. 

It’s all thoroughly ruined by the prince slamming open the door to Sang’s room, standing in the doorway still in his battle armor, helmet clutched in a white-knuckle grip. Zuko throws the headpiece at the wall, panting hard like an animal. Sang almost doesn’t jump at the terrible sound of metal hitting metal, watching the helmet come to rest on the floor next to his bed roll.

“He _escaped_.” Zuko hisses, smoke leaking out through his teeth. He stands in the doorway, arms shaking, staring at the floor with his jaw flexing in irritation. 

Sang knows that much, had peeked out his own door a few hours prior and spotted the Avatar: astoundingly young, brightly-dressed, mildly horrified by his surroundings. Sang thinks perhaps the Avatar saw him before he managed to close the door, a little terrified himself of the last living airbender and what he might be able to do, but all he heard afterward was some commotion from Zuko’s bedroom followed by echoing silence. 

“I heard,” Is what Sang replies, careful with how he speaks. Zuko is somewhat like his father when the mission is concerned, fear and hesitation are no excuses for failure in his eyes. “Do you know where he’s going?”

“We’re trailing behind his...bison,” Zuko huffs, pursing his lips. He crosses his arms, “We lost sight over an hour ago.”

“I’m sure you’ll find them again,” Sang murmurs, rising from his bed roll slowly. The prince is still tense, muscles straining in his neck as he grinds his teeth. “Are you hungry?”

“No,” Zuko says firmly at the same moment his stomach growls loudly enough for Sang to hear. His face flushes a bit, his voice was miserable, “...We were out there forever just melting the ice around the guards’ feet. They had a water bender.”

Sang nods, ushering the prince into the hall and closing his door behind them. He threads his arms around one of Zuko’s, begins leading him deeper into the ship toward the kitchens, “I thought that all the southern water benders were…gone.” He’s as tactful as he can be, there’s only so many polite ways to say ‘I was under the impression our navy killed them all.’

“She was younger than us,” Zuko says, still uptight and stiff. “She might not have been born yet. Or maybe she was too young to be recognized for what she was. But she was there.”

They walk into the kitchens together, Sang going around to light the torches so they could see. It’s a smaller space than the kitchens at the palace, only one oven to bake in and far fewer counters to set things upon. He doesn’t mind it too much since there’s only one other person to work alongside rather than the small army of cooks and maids who made the food for the royal family. 

Sang is digging around in their rations, looking for something to make a nice snack, when Zuko speaks again.

“Are you disappointed in me?”

He almost hits his head on the inside of a cabinet in his rush to straighten and look at the prince. Sang frowns softly in his direction, staring at Zuko as he sits at the counter, slumped over with his shoulders hunched up to his ears. 

“Am I what?”

“Disappointed. That I lost him.”

“I...Zuko, I’m sure that it’s going to be more...difficult than I could imagine, capturing the Avatar. There’s a reason no one else has done it before.”

“The reason was that we didn’t even know he was _alive_ . But now we do. And he was on this _ship_ ,” Zuko slams a fist into the metal counter top so hard that Sang jumps with the echoed _BOOM_. “And I couldn’t…”

Sang goes to him, strokes his hands over Zuko’s tense shoulders. “It’s okay, Prince Zuko. I believe you’re doing your best.”

“We can’t go home until I succeed. Doesn’t that terrify you?”

Sang purses his lips, digs his thumbs into the base of Zuko’s neck until the muscles give, melt under his touch. “I miss the Fire Nation as much as anyone on board does. It’s our home. But I’m not scared, no. I...I think if it’s possible, you’re going to be the one to find him again. I can’t imagine anyone else is more dedicated to this cause.”

“Everyone in the Fire Nation is going to want to find him now that they know he’s out there.”

“Zuko,” Sang sighs, digs his knuckles into the prince’s spine until the other boy hisses. Zuko’s back is a solid mass of knots, even worse than how Sang usually finds it after the prince has been training all day. “I know you’ll do all you can to get us home. And...I’m not unhappy here.”

“You’re not unhappy on the ship? All you do is work and play Pai Sho with my uncle.”

Sang shrugs, “All I did was work even more at home. And you’re still here. It’s really not the worst place to be.” He doesn’t say what he thinks, that he can’t imagine returning to the palace even if they had captured the Avatar that night-- how does one gracefully return to a country that spat them out to wander endlessly at sea? That took parts of them they can’t get back? Sang wonders about those questions alone, has a sick hope that he won’t live to find out how he’d ever integrate back into serving the Fire Lord.

Zuko is quiet for a few long moments, letting Sang rub at his shoulders and back until the muscles start to relax under his palms. He feels rather than hears the prince sigh, roll his shoulders, “Were you going to make something to eat or just rub my back?”

“You should try being less agitated next time,” Sang snarks back, flicking Zuko in the ear before moving back toward the oven. He lights a fire within it, hums and pulls out the ingredients he needs to make a sweet bread. 

Their stock is running low, not for lack of funds but Zuko's relentless need to continue sailing these last few weeks. Sang supposes that now it seems almost prophetic, that Zuko made them sail so long only to barely catch sight of the Avatar's return. It hasn't been kind to their pantries. 

He gets a passable dough into the ovens and carefully lights the fire underneath it, leaving it to bake while he loiters near a counter with the prince. Zuko looks pensive, like all the things running through his brain have made him forget where he is. Sang slides his hand along the counter top just within Zuko’s vision, the prince’s palm coming to rest on top of it. 

Zuko looks up, meets Sang’s good eye and tightens his grip on the other boy’s hand. “I’m going to get the both of us home,” He says firmly, “I swear to you.”

Sang smiles, feels his heart break again for this boy like it does a dozen times a day. He brings the prince’s hand to his lips, kisses Zuko’s knuckles, still red-hot and bruised from the tussle outside. He heard loose details about the fight, nothing he wanted to picture or believe. 

Sang knows none of these villages have many men anymore, thanks to the Fire Nation bringing the war to every front they can find. Was informed by one of the guards that the “native warrior” they fought couldn’t have been older than thirteen. There’s a reason that Sang stays in his rooms when action hits, acts as if they aren’t travelling in a vessel designed for war on a mission destined to do nothing but insight more of it. 

“I know you’ll do everything you can, Zuko,” Sang says, because it’s all he can say and still be honest. “...But I do need you to be careful. Neither the ship nor the palace will feel like home if you’re not there with me.”

Zuko gives a solemn nod, eyes focused on a point over Sang’s shoulder, hand tense in his friend’s careful grasp. Sang wonders what he thinks about when his eyes glaze over and the prince’s body is still here but his mind is clearly not. He’s seen Zuko do it many times since they were banished, more often after something stressful or when a day has run him too ragged. 

Sang hopes he thinks of good things, that maybe the prince has a place there that he tucks himself into when reality becomes overwhelming-- far too often an occurrence as of late. Maybe he thinks about the garden, like Sang does while meditating. Maybe he thinks about the beaches of Ember Island, of the lines of his favorite play or time spent writing letters to people he sees every day. Maybe it’s the bright torches and thick cooking smoke of a a festival back home. 

Maybe he thinks about war. About the Agni Kai. About tradition, and his honor, and his father. 

When Zuko emerges, blinking hard and pulling his hand back, he’s too exhausted as always to emote anything besides the desire for his bed. Sang still doesn’t know whether his friend visits a sanctuary or a nightmare when he daydreams. Whatever it is clearly saps him of his vigor, dims him until he’s barely a smolder. 

Sang retrieves the bread and wraps it in a cloth while it’s still warm, leads Zuko gently by the arm back to his room but leans his head on the prince’s shoulder like he’s being escorted. He helps Zuko out of his armor, gingerly removing each piece and setting them aside to be polished by a servant in the morning. Sang is trying to find a place to put the bread away when he hears Zuko collapse into his bed roll with a deep groan, turns around to find him loose-haired and shirtless, facing away and already limp with sleep. 

Sang sighs, half weary half dreamy, and lies down gingerly behind the prince. His own eyelids are heavy, relieved beyond measure to finally close and drift off. He presses his forehead to the nape of Zuko’s neck, wishes sweet dreams for him as they both fade. 

Wishes for sanctuary.


	8. Color(ful)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iroh goes missing- Sang comes out of hiding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late chapter, it was a doozy to write and rewrite! I plan to jump around a lot time wise, and I'll also be posting to the sister story "The Years Between". I hope everyone stays safe and has a good week!

The longer Sang stays within his room, the more color begins to sap out of the world. It’s a feeling he’s intimately familiar with, the first encounter just after his mother’s death when he was forced to stay in the servants’ quarters until all the sick recovered or passed. Even when Zuko had found him, the very morning the orders were lifted, he hadn’t wanted to face the outside. It had seemed too much at the time, like he might just combust if he was forced to talk or do. 

Seeing the prince’s face had helped. Being reminded that something, someone, outside was suffering his absence made the world regain a bit of hue. 

It begins again when they dock on Kyoshi Island. He stands on the foredeck, gripping the railing and watching as the village burns. He feels sick, hearing the chaos ensue as flames take homes, shops, people with them. It makes shame burn deep in his gut, makes his hands grow cold with the remorse of having such destruction inside of him. 

Sang retreats fully after the second Agni Kai, at first locking himself away to keep from blasting a hole into the ship’s hull with his anger. He can’t help but be outraged and disappointed- in the crew for so freely betraying the prince, in Zuko for throwing himself into danger, in himself for more than he can even say- and the feeling haunts him endlessly. 

He’s never spent so much time indoors aboard the ship, staring at his own four walls and all the objects held within, his every earthly possession keeping him company while the exit taunts him only a few feet away, utterly unreachable. 

Sang’s trunk has been open for days, robes strewn about from his own inspection- he hasn’t actually dressed but to change the shorts that he sleeps in- writing implements scattered on the floor, rolling back and forth with the waves and reminding him that each time he thinks to pick one up the though of writing, of putting ink to paper, very nearly drives him mad.

More mad, perhaps.

The only respite is the neat shelving atop the lone table, a gift from General Iroh to hold the various scrolls that Sang enjoys collecting at any opportunity. The subject matter varies widely, from various forms of martial arts (none of which he can actually perform) to storytelling from several different cultures. Despite the struggle he has with the actual reading, he finds that it’s one of the only pastimes that doesn’t cause an absurd surge of grief or terror.

Sang has one spread open over his lap, hair dangling around his face and dancing over the paper. It’s simple lines of poetry, something he has a deep affinity for, that describe a great devotion between the writer and his subject. The lovely calligraphy and flowing words remind him of a time when Zuko wrote similarly, when he felt profoundly things other than rage or disgrace. 

His friend was once a talented writer, someone who saw beauty in his surroundings and sought to bask in it, to put it to paper and relive it as many times as he was able. 

Sang is rereading a passage where the author compares their love to a sweet wine, his heart fluttering around every word, when he hears chaos ensue just outside his door. He can barely make out the sound of Zuko shouting orders, footsteps ringing off the metal floors as the guards hurry to obey.

There’s a few moments of silence where Sang is sure they’ve all left, gone off to execute the prince’s instruction, before an almost timid knock echoes in his room. It’s been several days since anyone’s made the attempt, leaving Sang to his devices while they all worked outside, so the sound startles him enough to flinch away. 

He stands slowly, cautiously, and unlocks the heavy door. He allows just his good eye to be visible, peeking out to catch sight of Zuko standing before his doorway. 

The prince looks afflicted, jaw tense and hands fisted at his sides, eyes focused on his own feet. He doesn’t meet Sang’s gaze, only lets out a slow breath before speaking, “Uncle is missing.”

“What?” Sang asks before he can fully process the meaning of the words, brow furrowing as he opens the door just that much wider. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s been taken by Earth benders,” Zuko nearly snaps, the tendon in his neck standing out like it might snap any moment. “They took him while he was in a hot spring.”

“...Are we in the Earth Kingdom?” Is his next question, which only further irritates Zuko if the inhuman noise ripped from his throat is any indication.

“We’re going to go find him,” The prince powers on past it, “If we’re not back by daylight, I need you to write my father and tell him Uncle was taken.”

“I will do no such thing.”

Zuko grunts, eyes to the sky, “Sang-”

“If your uncle doesn’t return I’m not going to be anywhere near this ship,” He continues. “And I certainly will not be writing to the Fire Lord to inform him that we lost his brother. I don’t think you really thought through how that would likely go for me.”

Sang turns away from him then, hands already working to gather up his own hair and pile it atop his head into a tight bun. He pulls a dark robe over his sleeping clothes, sliding his feet into a pair of boots and marching back to the door.

“I’m coming with you.”

* * *

“The moment anything goes wrong, I want you to run and hide somewhere,” Zuko tells him as they follow the trail of large bird tracks in the packed dirt. Sang is busy looking around, taking in the sights of the forest around them, gargantuan and overwhelming to a boy who spent his entire life in a palace and, more recently, on a ship. He feels tense out in the open, not liking the idea of how many animals must be watching them right now, everything an unknown.

“And what will you do if ‘anything goes wrong’? If they took your uncle I think they’ll be able to take you as well.”

Zuko merely grunts, continuing the hike with grim resolve, clutching Iroh’s sandal in one hand as he stalks along the path. Sang keeps close to his back, eyes darting about to take stock of their surroundings, paranoid of an ambush.

A rustling in the trees startles him enough to grab onto the prince’s arm with a shout, clinging to his sleeve as small, grey creature climbs up a tree to observe them with its large, black eyes. Sang stares back, cheeks hot, as he feels Zuko let out a heavy breath.

“That would be a sugar glider,” He sighs, the rolling of his eyes audible in his tone. “And I guarantee it’s terrified of you.”

“Hush,” Sang hisses, detaching himself and stomping forward. “It could’ve been anything.”

“If it was an earth bender you’d probably be in chains.”

“It’s not the other benders I’m worried about,” He still peers about the treetops, waiting for another creature to burst forth, this time with more teeth and worse intentions. “People aren’t hard to deal with, but I can’t talk an animal out of eating me.”

“I think you should learn better survival skills,” Zuko snarks. The path continues to wind, narrow with a steep drop-off on one side that presses Sang further inward with visions of a single misstep sending him careening down. 

“I think you should learn to keep better track of your uncle.”

“Sh!” Zuko throws his arm out, hand landing square in the center of Sang’s chest to stop him. The other boy almost balks at him until he hears other voices talking amongst themselves not far ahead. “I think we found the earth benders.”

Along another, narrow path branching off the one they stand on is a pit surrounded by stones. As they draw closer, Sang can see the multitude of soldiers surrounding the near-bare form of the general, kneeling in front of a flattened boulder with his cuffed wrists presented atop it. The situation looks dire, the captain droning at length as Iroh looks on, stoic. 

Zuko curses under his breath, dropping into a crouch behind an outcropping of rocks. “All right, stay up here while I go down and free him, then- Sang? Sang!” He whispers harshly, turning around to be hit in the face with the other boy’s red, outer robe. 

“Sh,” Sang puts a finger up to his lips, “Don’t yell.” He backs away, keeping a careful eye on the soldiers as he cautiously puts himself in plain sight, dressed now in plain, white underclothes. He tears the band from his hair, letting it all fall around his shoulders and into his face, tossing it back before taking a deep breath.

Zuko ducks down once more as Sang lets out a bloodcurdling scream, a shout of alarm coming from below as the soldiers react. He stares as the other boy collapses to his knees, crying out with genuine tears rolling down his cheeks. The footsoldiers break off to inspect the noise, quickly surrounding him as Sang babbles about being lost, that his family had been traveling nearby and he lost sight of them, and can they please help him?

It’s enough. The captain still in the pit has paused, distracted now by the commotion and apparently abandoned child. He turns to Iroh and says something Zuko can’t hear, bending the stone beneath him to form around the chain, holding his uncle in place while the captain stalks off after his men. Zuko sticks to the sides of the rocks as he stealthily makes his way down to where his uncle sits, eyes also drawn now to the spectacle that Sang is making. 

“Uncle,” He whispers harshly, drawing the older man’s attention. Iroh visibly relaxes, grinning widely at the sight of his nephew. Zuko stands to his full height, looking up at the group of soldiers as Sang throws himself dramatically to the ground, inconsolable. With a swift movement he brings his heel down onto the chains, breaking the connection between the cuffs. 

Iroh stands slowly, looking to his nephew expectantly. Zuko waves him along as they creep back to the cover, steps dull in comparison to the chaos above them. He’s just crouched down once more, now considering how to draw the soldiers away from his friend when he hears another scream.

“Fire benders!” Sang cries, pointing in the opposite direction, back into the forest. “I saw them run off that way!”

The soldiers all snap to attention, yelling over each other as they rush to ready their weapons, the captain already running ahead and calling for them to follow. Sang watches them go, gasping and sniffling until they’re well out of sight. 

Iroh and Zuko emerge as Sang makes his way back to the outcropping, wiping his face and grabbing up his robe from the dirt. He slides it on as Iroh rushes forward and pulls him into a hug hard enough to crack his back, which the boy receives with a startled grunt. 

“How clever!” He chuckles, slapping Sang on the shoulder before releasing him. 

Sang’s face is flush, his hands busying themselves with tying up his hair again. “Nobody likes trying to ignore a crying child. Let’s just be grateful I’m still short enough to look like one.”

“We could have fought them,” Zuko says, arms crossed over his chest. “And they could’ve just as easily taken you into custody. That was reckless and dangerous.”

“More reckless than trying to rush in alone and fight off a half dozen grown men?” Sang asks, voice going higher as he stomps forward past the general, “Or is it just your greatest want in life to terrify me?”

“If you’d stayed on the ship like I said-”

“You would’ve fought them,” Sang finishes. “Or burned down the forest. Or set another village on fire. I  _ know _ very well what you do when I let you go out alone.”

“Maybe if you can’t handle what happens in war you should just go find yourself a village to wallow in.”

“As if there’s anywhere I could go that we haven’t already burned,” Sang shakes his head, tucks his hands into his sleeves and takes a deep, cleansing breath. “I’m going back to the ship. I’m tired of arguing with you.”

He turns away, making his way back up to the path to follow the footprints back to the port. Iroh comes to stand next to his nephew, Zuko still a tense line of frustration.

“If you would like, I could provide some much-needed wisdom-”

“I don’t need your wisdom, I need a better crew,” Zuko grunts, kicking up dirt as he, too, trudges up to the path. 

“I am grateful to the both of you!” Iroh shouts after him. “You showed great cooperation! And your strike to the chains was in perfect form!”

The older man sighs, watching their backs disappear into the horizon. He joins them on the road, shaking his head sadly.

“They always fight just before dinner,” Iroh mourns to himself, “I can never have a peaceful meal on that ship.”


	9. Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew is conscripted; Sang reflects upon his relationship with the prince.

“Zuko, you’re actually quite talented-” The heavy door is slammed in Sang’s face as much as they can be, cutting him off from his attempts to recruit the prince into music night on the deck. The Tsungi horn wasn’t perhaps the most glamorous of instruments, but Sang considered the ability to contribute to the band to be an honor no matter what one played. 

He said so each time he conspicuously grabbed for a dainty flute each time they were called upon to participate, leaving Zuko with the Tsungi horn. 

“At least let me in then,” He pleads, knocks gently on the door. Their relationship has been tentative the last few weeks, filled with more bickering than Sang would like, more spite than he thought himself or Zuko capable of at one point in time. Adolescence made fools of them all. “I don’t want to spend my night with a bunch of tipsy old men.”

It takes a few long moments where Sang thinks perhaps that’s it then, he might as well turn in and try again in the morning, before Zuko cracks the door just enough before returning back to the recesses of his cabin. Sang gently allows himself entry, closing the door quietly and leaving the pair of them in the dimly lit room, Zuko’s bed and meditation display crowding the floor space.

Sang makes himself at home on top of Zuko’s blankets, his knees tucked underneath himself. “Just couldn’t do the horn one more time, hm?” He brings up conversationally, knowing how cumbersome of an experience it is, knowing that’s probably not the reason that Zuko won’t join them. 

“Listening to Uncle sing is embarrassing,” Zuko gripes, leaning his back against a wall. “And like you said, who wants to spend a night with drunk old men?”

“Other drunk old men, it would seem.”

The prince huffs a laugh to himself but doesn’t offer up further conversation. Sang isn’t sure if it’s just him or if the lull between words hasn’t gotten longer now. If they haven’t run out of things to say. 

Zuko once wrote him a letter or more every day for a whole month without seeing him face to face. Now they can barely speak and he can disappear for weeks without intervention. He doesn’t know how to fix it.

“You know, the Fire Days Festival just passed,” Sang says wistfully, with almost a futile edge, like Zuko very well may just not respond to him. “Do you remember, that little Earth Kingdom village?”   
  
“I remember watching the festival through the telescope onboard and you wouldn’t stop trying to find my line of sight and block it.”

“It’s called dancing.”

“I was trying to look for the Avatar.”

“If it helps, I didn’t see him. And I exhausted that festival.”

“You  _ are _ exhausting.”

Sang aches for a time when Zuko didn’t actually sound tired when he said that.

Just before he can respond, the door opens and Iroh fills the frame, face carefully neutral and hands tucked away into his sleeves.

“For the last time, Uncle, I’m not playing the Tsungi horn.”

“It’s not about that, it’s about our plans,” The general looks into the hallway with a worrisome expression. “There’s been some changes-”

Zhao barges into the room, taking up all too much space. His eyes linger on Sang, a young servant knelt on the prince’s bed, and the boy can’t hold his stare longer than a moment. He doesn’t want to know what the admiral is thinking. 

“Well, I do hope I’m not interrupting,” Zhao comments lightly. If the very sight of him didn’t fill Sang with unfamiliar, hot rage he might blush. “I’m commandeering your crew.”

Zuko’s stance changes from almost indifferently resting against the wall to tightly wound and ready to engage, “What?!”

“I’ve recruited them for a little expedition of mine to the North Pole.”

“I’m afraid so,” Iroh confirms mournfully. “He’s taking everyone, even the cook.”

“What crew member is this?” Zhao asks, motioning toward Sang. Last time Zhao’s men had boarded the ship, Sang had locked the door to his room and sat in silence while they made attempts to unlock it from the outside to confirm his presence. They’d given up after a short time, more afraid of being late to report back to their superior than to perhaps miss a crewman on their manifest.

“Sang,” Iroh answers. “He is a...childhood playmate of the prince’s. He is here for company. Very skilled at Pai Sho.”

The last bit is an outright lie, although any other real skill the general might mention would only mean conscription. Sang sees Zhao eye him once more, scrutinizing him now, although his expression soon shifts to disinterest. In sharp contrast to the other cook, a grown man with experience on a war vessel to rival Zhao himself, Sang knows he is even more sheltered than Zhao considers Zuko to be, not to mention still slight enough to be confused for a much younger boy. 

“I see,” The admiral hums, turns to Zuko once again. “Well, I’m sorry you won’t be there to watch me capture the Avatar, but I can’t have you getting in my way again.”

Zuko lunges, but Iroh catches him just before he can make contact with the admiral. Zhao’s eyes wander, find a pair of crossed swords on the wall. He walks toward them, almost entranced, while Zuko wrenches himself from his uncle and goes deathly still, eyes following the admiral like a predator. 

Zhao picks one up off the wall and begins to practice with it in swift, sharp motions. “I didn’t know you were skilled with broadswords, Prince Zuko.”

Sang isn’t sure if there’s a sword Zuko couldn’t pick up and master. As powerful as his bending has gotten, Sang has always more admired the prince’s weaponry work. 

“I’m not,” Zuko says. “They’re antiques, just decorative.”

“Have you heard of the Blue Spirit, General Iroh?”

The name isn’t new to Sang, not with how gossipy the crew is. He’s never been sure what to think about it, only knows that Zuko refuses to state an opinion on it, perhaps since the Blue Spirit saved the Avatar. Sang thinks Zuko must hate him.

“I have heard rumors. I don’t think he is real.”

“He’s real all right,” Zhao’s voice is mildly threatening, he levels his gaze once more at the prince. He hands the sword to Iroh. “He’s a criminal, and an enemy of the Fire Nation, but I have a feeling justice will catch up with him real soon.”

He goes to leave but stops in the doorway, turns slightly toward Iroh, “General Iroh, the offer to join my mission still stands...if you change your mind.”

* * *

Zuko is livid after the admiral leaves, so much so that it isn’t long before Iroh takes his leave with a promise to return after the prince has calmed down.

Sang is still on the bed, stroking through his own hair idly and eyeing Zuko’s rigid form as he paces the length of the room. He can see the prince’s jaw working tightly, his teeth probably grinding hard enough to hurt if they weren’t about to melt out of his skull. Smoke leaks from the edges of his mouth and his nostrils, trailing behind him as he walks. 

“Zuko, I’m sure everything will be fine,” Sang tries, not for the first time. “We can get another crew. Maybe one that isn’t...technically in the army. So they can’t be conscripted.”

“I’m not worried about those traitors!” Zuko snaps at him, “If he captures the Avatar at the North Pole, this whole mission is over.”

“What are the chances he can even do that? No one’s been able to catch him yet. Not us  _ or _ Zhao.”

“He’s taking an entire fleet,” Zuko tells him gravely. “And if he doesn’t succeed this time, he’ll just take a bigger one, then an even bigger one. The Avatar is the most valuable asset the Fire Nation could possess right now, they’re not just going to stop. And if Zhao is going to the North Pole, he won’t leave anything there for the Avatar to hide in.”

Sang feels a cold chill down his spine, the all-too-fresh memories of burning villages, ashen fields and scarred landscapes still burned into his memory from their travels. “That’s terrible.”

Zuko seems, if anything, irritated at his response. His lips thin into a tense line, disapproval evident, “It’s war. They were going to be invaded whether the Avatar hid there or not.”

There’s a long silence where Sang almost doesn’t want to respond, to elongate this conversation into an argument, but it comes from his mouth despite his attempts at restraint, “There was a time you cared about this sort of thing.”

The prince gives him a long look, smoke curling around his scar. “And that was clearly the wrong choice.”

“Is that what you think?” Sang asks, brow furrowing. “You did something wrong and your father punished you for it?”

“I dishonored him, Sang, he at least gave me the opportunity to redeem myself.”

“Zuko,” He almost wants to cry. Part frustration, part anguish. “He got angry that you spoke out of turn and refused to engage him in a fight. He almost killed you, then he banished you. What part of that speaks to someone whose morals you should value?”

“What you’re saying could be considered treason, I’d tread carefully.”

“I’ve already committed treason!” Sang’s voice rises without his consent, his feet finding themselves on the floor. “I was exiled for it!  _ With you _ .”

“You threatened the Fire Lord-”

“He hurt my friend,” Sang says, voice suddenly soft. Fragile. “I had just seen him hurt my only friend. I didn’t know if you were okay, if you were  _ alive _ , and he just sat there smiling at me and talking about what a dramatic show  _ I _ put on while he was burning you in front of the entire court.

He steps closer to Zuko, whose expression has become unreadable, “I would do it again.”

The prince closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. Sang isn’t sure if he’s angry or calm, and the odd tension in the room makes him uneasy. 

“Do you not miss home?”

It throws him off, the vulnerable tone with which Zuko addresses him. The prince is looking at him in the eye, more open than they’ve been for a long time. “Of course. Sometimes.”

“What do you mean ‘sometimes’?”

“Every once in a while,” Sang shrugs, unsure of what to say. “I’ll sometimes miss the gardens. Sometimes some of the hallways we used to play in. Why?”

Zuko looks almost offended, takes a step away from him and towards his own bed, “I...I miss the palace every day. I think about it all the time. The only thing in the world I want is to go back home. I don’t know how you don’t feel the same.”

“I want you to go home too, I know you miss it. But...hasn’t it been nice out on the ship? Freeing?”

“This ship has been a floating prison since I stepped foot on it,” Zuko responds, venomous. 

“Zuko, at least I can leave the ship. At least on the ship no one forcibly escorts me back to my rooms if I’m out after dinner. I’m not constantly waiting for someone to order me around or humiliate me.”

The prince is quiet again, sitting carefully on the edge of his bed and looking contemplative. The longer it goes on, the more nervous Sang becomes. It seems like ages before Zuko speaks up again, voice quiet and neutral. “Is that really how you feel?”

“Yes,” Sang says simply. He feels close to crying, he isn’t sure why.

Zuko releases a breath, closes his eyes, “All right. When your conscription to this ship ends, I’ll have uncle arrange for you to be dropped off at whatever Earth Kingdom village you choose. You can take all the items in your room and a stipend for the time you worked aboard the ship.”

“Zuko, what are you saying?”

“If you found your life in the palace so unbearable, once we find the Avatar I’ll have the power to free you from it. If Zhao does it first...Uncle has that authority.”

Sang almost wants to laugh, like surely the prince is joking. Out on his own? In another country, with odd countrymen? 

“You can’t really mean that,” He tries, desperate. “We’d...we’d never see each other again.”

Zuko rises, standing close enough that Sang can feel his breath, “I’ve come to realize our priorities differ. The time on this mission has radicalized you and made you disloyal to the Fire Nation. If I’m going to regain my honor, I can’t dally with unrepentant traitors.”

“I’m a dalliance?” 

“I think it’s time you went to bed, Sang.”

Sang looks the prince in the face and tries very, very hard to find a glimpse of his friend, any sign that Zuko might feel something beneath the stoney facade. His eyes hold no warmth, no real anger. The prince looks tired. 

Either way, Zuko had clearly made his choice. 

“I think so, too,” Sang murmurs, turning away and going back to the door. His hand lifts to unlock it, hesitates for a moment.

Sang pushes the lock open and shoves the door forward, then walks down the hallway without looking back. 


	10. Heart(ache)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko's heart breaks once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I hope you're all doing well! After this chapter will be a bit of a time skip, most of the chapter is written up and waiting to be edited! I also have a large personal collection of picrews of Sang if that seems like something anyone wants a link to lol

Zuko lies in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying very hard to think of more productive things than upset friends or traitorous crews. Uncle Iroh had already been by to try and coax him out, to no avail, so he sits in the echoing silence of the ship, the only sound his crackling fire and the inner groanings of the walls as waves hit the hull relentlessly. 

He feels a faint ache in his chest from the way he’d left things with Sang, tired as he is of the seemingly endless verbal sparring that follows every mission, every military move, every mention of the cost of war. He knows his friend is soft, anxious, even after all the horrors of their youth, but Zuko himself had had a long and arduous education in just what happens when you diverge, deviate. 

He had thought that Sang had learned the same lesson. That was a mistake.

It frustrates him to no end that Sang refuses to understand him, that they can no longer even find agreement talking about home. He’s felt the ground slipping beneath him, but he never thought the chasm between them could grow so wide without him looking. That Sang would one day look at the distance and shrug. 

He startles from his reverie at a sharp thud in the halls, echoing off the metal. Zuko sits up and creeps out of his bed, movements slow and cautious as to not make anyone aware of his presence. He opens the door to his chambers only to find the hallway empty, Sang’s open bedroom the only evidence that anything had occurred at all. He stands in the doorway for perhaps a moment too long, looking at the crumpled blankets and remnants of attempted letters and picked-at meals. 

How long did he allow Sang to sit on his bedroll alone? How many days did his friend sit, listless, staring at a door that would never move? How many times did he think today, perhaps, the prince would once again attempt to lure him out, only to find that Zuko’s patience had apparently run out?

His chest aches, but he continues on.

The ship is quieter than Zuko can ever recall it being, the creaks and moans of the walls growing more and more similar to human suffering the longer he finds himself within the halls, searching for confirmation of something amiss. Without the crew or his uncle, it almost seems as if the ship itself is feeling their absence, its inner walls and floors shuddering and groaning with grief that feels almost tangible. 

Zuko finds himself on the bridge, eventually. It’s usually one of the busier rooms onboard, someone always checking various instruments and ensuring they were still on course. Now, it sits empty and forlorn, the wheel locked into place and the torches cold. 

Movement catches his eye and Zuko’s attention snaps to it, the form of a bright green iguana parrot on the railing outside. It takes him a moment too long to remember why such a creature fills him with a mixture of rage and terror, his eyes widening in realization just before he hears the first explosion. 

The parrot flees.

* * *

When Zuko hits the ocean, the water feels as if it might as well have been the ground. The cold shocks his system, forces him to keep himself above the waves as he swims desperately for the shore, salt and sulfur stinging his eyes finding its way into his nose and mouth. He reaches land, fingers digging into the sand to haul himself forward, barely managing to crawl a few feet before he must collapse.

He lies there for a long while, coughing up sea water and trying to take a breath without also filling his lungs with sand or the stinging smoke from the still-burning wreckage that had once been his ship as it was slowly reclaimed by the ocean. Zuko sits up carefully, moving various parts of himself to make sure he still can. He feels the beginnings of a black eye, the skin of his face already tender and swollen in several areas, if not broken open completely.

He forces himself to stand, gritting his teeth as he struggles toward the path, intent on finding his uncle and Sang and- 

Zuko stops, swaying in place, the night clinging to him, the only sounds those of the ship burning. For the first time in a long time, he is unsure of what the next step will be. There is no crew to charge, no ship to carry them. If the Avatar walked past him right then, Zuko would not even have a place to hold him, would have no way of getting him to the palace without also involving Zhao. 

The realization makes him feel cold, his stomach turning frigid as he finds himself adrift. He stumbles forward once more, hearing the faint sounds of another voice toward the pier. Zuko does not allow his mind to linger, tries instead to think only of putting one of his feet in front of the other, ignoring the ache settling into his bones and the freezing water still clinging to him.

Iroh stands on the docks, looking out over the ocean at the few floating pieces of debris that litter the surface of the water. When he turns at the sound of Zuko’s approach, his face is ruddy and tearful, his arms immediately finding themselves around his nephew’s torso to crush the prince to his own chest. 

“Prince Zuko!” His uncle cries, clinging to him almost painfully. Zuko doesn’t make any noise of complaint, instead just allowing himself to feel the deep relief of his uncle’s company without allowing it to trail into the thoughts of his now defunct mission. “I was so worried! I knew I should not have left you two alone on the ship-”

“T-Two?” Zuko stutters, unable to keep the shiver from his teeth. “S-Sang was suppo- w-with you.”

Iroh’s arms loosen and drop to his own sides. He looks into Zuko’s face, stricken, “Sang said he did not want to go on a walk. I...I left him in his rooms.”

Zuko shakes his head, looks out over the wreckage as if the twisted, burnt pieces of hull might be hiding his friend beneath them. He hurries, as much as he can, back to the path, looking around wildly like he may find evidence to the contrary. “Uncle, he wasn’t in- in his room,” He struggles, “He must have- he’s here, I know-”

“Prince Zuko, you’re injured,” Iroh follows him, hands hovering to catch Zuko if he might fall. “We must find someone to heal you-”

“I don’t need to be healed!” He shouts, grunting in pain and stumbling with the effort. His knees buckle and send him to the ground, his uncle frantically surrounding him like a fretting hen. 

The moonlight glints off a round, white object in the grass not far from him. Zuko pushes past Iroh, crawling toward it with a wince and grasping it tightly, bringing it to his face to examine.

He looks into an eye, the iris a small, round onyx carved to resemble a pupil. The surface of the glass is grubby and smeared in dirt, but unbroken. When Iroh crouches to help Zuko stand, he catches sight of it as well, hands pausing where they reach to hold his nephew’s arms. 

“Is that-?”

“Sang’s eye,” Zuko whispers mournfully, idly rubbing a smear of dirt off the surface. “He...He’s never taken it out except in the bath.”

“Prince Zuko-”

“Don’t,” He jerks away, struggling to stand on his own. He clings to the eye, gripping it with renewed resolve. “Zhao has to pay for this.”

“Nephew, please, you’re hurt.”

“He killed my friend!” Zuko shouts, “I- I’m going to-” The blood rushing to his head makes him waver on his feet, Iroh quick to steady him. The world is tipping, trying to send him back to the ground, but Zuko refuses to fall again. His rage keeps him conscious and standing. 

“You will need a plan,” Iroh tells him, voice quiet and soothing. 

Zuko nods, allows himself to lean into his uncle as the anger bleeds into grief. The eye is a cold, heavy weight in his palm, reminding him endlessly of the face it had once been at home in. He wants to crawl into the brush, curl into himself, let the soil reclaim him instead of continuing to face the failures of the day. 

Iroh guides him gently down the path, murmuring assurances to him as he helps Zuko walk. He speaks in quiet tones of plans they will make, of the Avatar and his honor and the palace he will one day be welcomed into once again.

Zuko’s heart quietly aches, a pang of sadness ringing inside. For the first time in years, in perhaps his whole life, he briefly loses focus of the sharp, clear picture of his destiny. It’s blurred now with anger and anguish, stained with soot and blood. 

He finds now, he only wants to rest.


	11. (Re)Union

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko's new life in Ba Sing Sei complicates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone's doing well! My internet has been out all week and I've started a new job so I apologize for any delay! The next chapter will be flashing back briefly, and may actually need to be broken up into multiple chapters depending. Have a good weekend!

Nightmares are a familiar companion to sleep for Zuko. He’s never truly been without them, his youngest memories of waking up from terrible dreams of Azula, his father, his grandfather, his own failure to thrive. As he grows, so too do they into horrible menageries of loved ones he is forever separated from, of shame and humiliation and death. He finds no solace in calming teas before bed, in healing elixirs designed to provide a dreamless sleep, in comforting objects or sounds. Each one fails him as most things eventually do.

The only true cure had been the times when he allowed Sang to share his bed, chaste and borderline utilitarian in motive but still a source of shame in him. An open expression of weakness.

Now, in their dingy Lower Ring apartment, there isn’t much he wouldn’t give for that kind of comfort. The work in the tea shop as well as their commute leaves him exhausted by the time the sun has set and they’ve settled in for bed. He lies back, each night, looking up at the ceiling and dreading the moment sleep takes him, when he will inevitably be faced with every mistake, every disgrace, every moment of weakness or fear that he’s ever experienced as well as some new ones his mind seems to be constantly imagining up for its own torment.

Tonight, the setting in his subconscious is a familiar one, but not within the realm of his nightmares. His mother’s garden had always been a place of peace and warmth, but now it stands barren and frigid. The pond is frozen over, the turtle ducks nowhere to be seen, every flower ripped from its bed by the root and every tree chopped down to a stump. The grass is razed as if by fire, the edges of the garden leaking into inky black nothingness that he must face away from before it swallows him. 

A figure kneels before the frozen water, spindly hands pressing desperately to the surface of the ice as if the contact alone might melt it, might return the garden to its former glory. Zuko approaches slowly, his steps making no sound, and the figure straightens its posture, black hair tumbling down a slight back, trailing impossibly long on the ground. The silhouette almost resembles his mother, but he cannot quite tell what keeps it from being absolutely her.

“Zuko,” The voice is soft, unfamiliar, sends a cold chill down his spine. Like the voice of a spirit. “Why did you leave me?”

“What do you mean?” Zuko doesn’t understand. He steps closer but doesn’t seem to draw any nearer, “ _ You _ left  _ me _ . I was always at the palace!”

“Zuko,” A teardrop onto the ice, the voice thick now with grief. “Why did you leave me?”

“Mom, I don’t understand-” Zuko’s hand finally reaches her shoulder, turns her around.

The figure is not his mother.

The face is Sang’s, but sunken and damp with sea water. His hair wraps around his throat like a noose, his robes ripped and stained with ash and soot, his hands torn and broken. The tears that trace his cheeks are red, falling from bare sockets where his friend’s eyes were meant to be. A sob rips itself from Zuko’s throat and he tries to pull away, wanting to erase the image of his friend’s corpse from his mind.

Sang’s hands grasp him with supernatural strength, nails digging into his flesh to hold him, “ _ Why did you leave me?! _ ”

“I’m sorry!” Zuko cries out, trying desperately to escape the grip. “Please stop!”

“ _ I WON’T LET YOU LEAVE AGAIN. _ ”

* * *

Zuko wakes with a start, very nearly colliding heads with Iroh as he leans over his nephew’s formerly-prone form. His bedroll is soaked in cold sweat, his face still tacky with tears shed in his sleep. His throat burns as if he’s been screaming. 

“Are you all right, Zuko?” Iroh asks, a warm hand on his shoulder. “I will be surprised if you didn’t wake the entire block.”

“I’m sorry uncle,” He responds wearily, bone-deep exhaustion robbing him of any desire to speak or even remain conscious. He hasn’t slept well in weeks. 

“Your nightmares are getting worse, Zuko. You were thrashing enough to hurt yourself. What is tormenting you so?”

Zuko closes his eyes, wishing nothing more than to not have to do this, at this moment or ever. “...I saw Sang in my dream,” He says, voice cracking. “He...he had no eyes, and he asked me why I left him. I was trying to get away.”

His uncle’s hand moves to stroke the hair from his face gently, “I hope you do not blame yourself for what happened, Prince Zuko. There is nothing you could have done. I mourn him as well but I am also incredibly grateful that you did survive, as narrowly as you did. We cannot sully his memory with guilt.”

Zuko nods but can’t help but feel the lingering horror from his dream, the uncomfortable roiling in the pit of his stomach at the memory of his decayed friend.

“Try to get more rest,” Iroh tells him, smiling gently. “We will be in charge of the shop today while Pao is gone, you have a few more hours before we have to leave.”

He nods again, rolls over to fully disengage. Iroh stands slowly and walks back to his own bedroll, leaving his nephew to rest.

Zuko does not.

* * *

The tea shop is busier than normal, full of bodies constantly in and out, tables with rotating casts of customers that blur before Zuko’s eyes after a few hours on his feet. He’s moved about his whole day in a daze, fatigued and just barely conscious enough to pour tea without burning himself or a customer. Iroh hovers as much as he is able but, with Pao indisposed for the day, he has more on his plate than normal and cannot be attached at Zuko’s hip like he would prefer. 

Zuko is attempting to decipher his own order notes, now more of a scrawl as his hands become more and more unsteady as time goes by. The flow of customers has slowed to a blissful trickle, allowing him to stand in place for more than a scant few seconds before he’s called off to the opposite side of the room once more. 

The bell above the door rings to alert them of another customer, Iroh's voice calling from the back room that someone would be with them in just a moment. Zuko stares at his notes for a moment longer, the symbols swimming and blending together, before he lifts his gaze to the customer. 

A boy stands in the doorway, hair pulled back into a utilitarian ponytail and clad in a vaguely militaristic, dark green uniform. His eyes are bright and his smile is relaxed and natural, effortlessly putting off an aura of "please speak to me!"

Zuko's never been more disgusted in his life.

"How can I help you?" He asks, lackluster and monotone. The boy is unphased, perking up at being spoken to. He reminds Zuko of an overexcited dog. 

"I'm looking for Pao, do you know where he is?" The voice that comes from his mouth is surprisingly deep, but kind. 

"He's out today, we're running the shop for him."

"Oh," The boy hums, taking a scroll from his pocket. "Can you make sure he gets this? Just let him know Lin needs to talk to him, he'll understand."

Zuko takes the scroll with a frown, but nods. The boy grins and waves to him before departing just as quickly as he'd appeared. The scroll, upon closer inspection, is sealed with wax and written on poorly-cut paper. Zuko flees to the back room with it, breaking the seal and spreading the scroll over a table. 

_ Pao, _

_ I did not receive your message for today. Please send word back as soon as you are able.  _

_ Thank you _

He stares at the words, simple and halting and clearly written in haste. Probably one of many identical letters, written en masse with little consideration. He finds himself tracing the curves and lines with a finger, imagining the hand that painted them. The shapes feel like they're healing the weariness behind his eyes, brightening something up for the first time in what seems like forever. 

Iroh finds him, eventually. The shop has been closed, the tables cleaned. His uncle has tried to be understanding the last few days (weeks), knowing how poorly Zuko sleeps at night, and so finding Zuko poring over a letter not intended for him, dazedly staring at the brush strokes and petting the page gently, is perhaps not as shocking as it normally would have been.

"Zuko?" He asks, putting a hand on his nephew's shoulder. Zuko jumps but doesn't respond. "What is that?"

"A letter for Pao," Zuko replies, voice barely a whisper. 

"Perhaps we should put it up for him then-" Iroh reaches for the paper and a flame erupts between them.

" _ NO. _ "

Iroh's eyes are wide and he steps back a few feet, face full of concern. Zuko turns away from it, stares at the page. Shame burns in his chest, regret, but he doesn’t allow those feelings to manifest beyond turning sheepish. 

"I...I want to keep it."

"Zuko, I think you have a fever," Iroh tells him. "You are acting delirious."

"No! I-" The excuse dies on his tongue. His eyes scan the lines, scrutinizing them, because he knows he's looking for something. "I...I recognize it."

"The letter?"

"The handwriting," Zuko scrambles to pick up the scroll, holds it as close to his face as he can while still reading. "Uncle, it's his handwriting."

"Who, Zuko?" Iroh sounds tired, worried, but Zuko is no longer concerned with anything in the tea shop. It could burn around him and he wouldn’t care.

"Sang!" He shoves the letter into his uncle's face, pointing to the first line. "It's his handwriting, I'd know it anywhere!"

Iroh's hands are warm and gentle when they lower the scroll, cupping Zuko's wrists. He sighs, closing his eyes and seeming to center himself, "I know it is hard to lose someone-"

"Uncle-"

"-but you cannot continue to live like this, Prince Zuko," he purses his lips. "Sang would want you to move past it. To continue to live, not to cling to his memory like he is still with us."

"But he is!" Zuko insists, voice rising in octave and volume. "He's alive!"

Iroh shakes his head, lets out a burdened breath, "Please, Zuko. For your own sake, put the letter away. We can make a good life here for ourselves, but you must be  _ here _ .  _ Now _ . Not there and then."

Zuko doesn't understand why his uncle can't see it, the obvious curves of the lines, the smears where his hand drags across the wet ink, the stains where he rests his face or palm against the paper. It's all right there, screaming at him, telling him that his friend is alive. 

Zuko won't stop until he proves it.

* * *

Pao returns the next morning and, ever loyal, Iroh merely makes mention of a young man stopping by to ask about his "message" and leaves out the physical note that Zuko now keeps tucked next to his heart. 

"Oh!" Pao looks almost embarrassed. "I forgot to send in my fresh goods order. I get all my herbs from Choi's Greenery, I must have given them quite a fright! That's the first time I've missed it since they opened."

He bustles around the back room, taking note of the things he needs, things he has, things he wants to get if he can. It takes him long enough to write up the entire list that Iroh insists he and Zuko begin preparations for the morning rather than staring at their employer and twiddling their thumbs. 

"I'll be back in just a little while!" Pao states as he moves to exit the back room. Zuko cuts him off, Iroh attempting to give him a warning look behind Pao’s back.

"I can take it," Zuko offers his hand, palm up, giving no options otherwise. 

"I'm afraid they aren't fond of strangers in their place of business-"

"I'm not a stranger," He insists. "I know Lin. He works there."

Iroh has completely given up now, eyes closed in grim resignation. Pao looks conflicted, but sets the scroll in Zuko's outstretched hand. 

"I want you to go right there and right back, understood?" Pao attempts to remain as commanding as he ever was, urging Zuko out the door. "Just drop off the scroll, no dilly dallying!"

"Yes, sir," Zuko says, only half listening. He starts down the street without direction, staring at shop signs and passersby, trying to identify a familiar face or name. People pass him in a stream, each head of long hair making him pause, each glance of a dark eye or flash of brown skin makes his heart jump. None of them are fruitful, so he seeks out the Greenery. 

He comes upon a small, squat building sandwiched mercilessly between two equally downtrodden shops, a small sign above the door declaring it " _ Choi's Greenery". _ The door is slightly stooped, the frame crumbling, and Zuko is more careful than strictly necessary when he knocks. 

It opens just a crack, an eye poking out to catch sight of him. "Oh, it's the shop boy," Lin's eyeball remarks, still sickeningly friendly. "Can I help you?"

"I have Pao's order," Zuko replies, dry. "I need to come in."

"No, no, that's okay. Just hand it to me, I'll make sure it gets where it needs to go," He offers his palm for the scroll, not giving a single more inch of space. 

Zuko shoves his foot between the door and frame, prying it open forcefully, "I'm coming in."

Lin gives a shout of surprise, releasing the door when Zuko jerks it from his one-handed grip. Zuko shoves the other boy to the floor and slams the door shut behind him, casting them both into the darkness of a windowless building with only candles for lighting. There's a single other room, a plain wooden door with a small, neatly-written sign " _ Office _ ".

Lin scrambles to his feet, looking ready to pounce, but Zuko shoves past him, shouting, "Sang!  _ Sang _ !"

"Wait!" Lin tries to grab at him, pulling him back. Zuko barely resists burning him, hardly conscious anymore of where they are. "Who are you?!"

Zuko's foot meets the door and breaks it off its hinges, the wood splintering as it hits the floor and crashes into a desk, the sole furniture within the room besides its chairs. The figure seated there jumps to their feet, ready for combat. 

They both freeze. 

The face is deeply, intimately familiar to Zuko, but also different in ways that make him almost uneasy. The once rounded, russet cheeks have slimmed and darkened with sun; the once loose waves of hair have been bound brutally into a tight, thick braid that rests over a slightly-too-broad shoulder. Zuko realizes with a horrible start that all his life he's looked down on his friend, but now they stand eye-to-eye.

Sang is dumbstruck, his mouth hanging open, ink staining the center of his lips. He wears an eyepatch, the uncovered eye darting between Zuko's face and taking in the rest of him. The pair of them in green, in the Earth Kingdom, as regular citizens. It almost makes Zuko laugh. 

"Lin," Sang's voice is weak, fragile, deeper than Zuko remembers but perhaps that is the sudden roughness, the tears that he sees trace down from his friend's eye. "Please um...make a door? I...we need a moment."

"Are you sure?" Lin asks, eyeing Zuko as if he might attack once more at any moment.

"Lin, this is my… friend."

The boy blinks, seems to take in Zuko's appearance with renewed context. He nods stiffly, steps backward out of the office, raises a slab of stone to give them privacy. 

Leaves them alone, together.

Sang sinks back into his chair, blinking hard and clearing his throat. He straightens the papers on his desk distractedly, sniffing as tears continue to stain his cheek. "Um, oh, sit down, please." He motions to a chair shoved into the corner, which Zuko fetches and sets in front of the desk, sitting in it slowly. "I'm sorry, I...I just really wasn't expecting to..."

"See me?"

"I saw the ship explode," His voice breaks anew, Sang rubs his hand over his mouth as if he's once again watching the flames dance on the water. "I heard your uncle scream for you. I thought for sure you were on it."

"I was," Zuko confirms. "I barely made it. We couldn't find you, we thought you were on board."

Sang shakes his head, sniffs, almost-laughs, "Those stupid pirates tried to rob me, they took me into the forest. Zhao had them convinced I was a noble."

"Your eye-"

"There's...there's going to be a lot I need to explain," Sang sighs, stroking a hand over his braid. "Is your uncle here?"

"We work at Pao's shop. Oh," Zuko pulls the scroll from his robe, sets it on the table. "I was...here for this. Sorry about your door."

Sang snorts, picks it up and unravels it, "Pao is a good man, I'm glad you found him. There's a lot of people here who try to take advantage of the new refugees."

"I've noticed."

Sang smiles, sets the scroll down and stands again, "I'm very happy to see you again, Zuko. I...I was not well after I thought you were gone." He pauses, reaches out a tentative hand. Zuko almost snaps his face into the palm palm like a magnet, but barely resists the urge. Sang's hand is warm, but rougher than he recalls, new calluses brushing his cheekbone. "You don't look good either."

"I haven't been sleeping."

“I can imagine,” Sang nods, drops his hand and reclines a bit. His eye wanders over the piles of paper on his desk, some half-written letters in his own hand, some lists from others. It makes the modest stack of correspondence he had in the palace look almost attractive. Zuko thinks perhaps his friend can more than imagine the difficulties of elusive sleep. 

“Come with me?” Zuko asks. Sang’s eye snaps up and he is quick to continue, “Our apartment. It’s not too far. It’s not the palace, but-”

“I’d love to,” Sang breathes. “We can talk over dinner. I’ll cook.”

“You don’t need to-”

“I want to. Trust me, it’s been a very long time since I’ve gotten to make a meal, myself. I miss it.”

“I miss your cooking,” The words tumble from Zuko’s mouth, unbidden, but the reaction on Sang’s face is worth the vulnerability. His lips spread in a smile, eye bunching up to a tiny crescent moon. It’s a look Zuko was so sure he’d never have the pleasure of seeing again. 

Sang stands, smile now a permanent fixture, and offers Zuko a hand, "Well? Let's get going."

Zuko takes his hand. 


End file.
